If you have sustained a serious injury, it is very important to pursue physical therapy to heal the injury, restore functionality, and stop lasting pain. In short, personalized physical therapy can help you regain control of your daily life.
With that in mind, the team at Mount Prospect Health Center shares the benefits of physical therapy in Newark, NJ, and the surrounding areas. Call to schedule an appointment or read on to learn more about how physical therapy could help you recover.
What Is Physical Therapy?
If you sustain an injury, you’ll likely find that you can’t use that limb or joint and that you’re experiencing a lot of pain. Physical therapy exists to heal injuries and help your body get things working as they should through targeted exercises like stretching and resistance training.
Physical therapy uses movement, rest, manipulation, and other methods to help injuries heal correctly. Physical therapy has an average 72% success rate in assisting with recoveries. It can also significantly reduce people’s reported pain and discomfort.
What Does Physical Therapy Involve?
The structure of your physical therapy session will entirely depend on your needs. Generally, the physical therapist will perform inpatient sessions that include:
- Guided exercises
- Stretches
- Other techniques
An average therapy session takes from 90 minutes to 2 hours, with the typical therapy regimen lasting between six to eight weeks.
Physical Therapy Just For You
There are general rules that work in all physical therapy. However, the most effective form of therapy is a wholly personalized session. Everyone’s bodies are different, and what is the best treatment for one patient might not work for another person.
Personalized therapy tailors your exercises and stretching to meet your particular levels of strength, comfort, and ability. These personalized sessions also prioritize an individual’s goals. For instance, you might want to gear your program toward getting stronger, improving your endurance, or getting back your quality of life and ability to conduct daily chores without pain.
Benefits of Personalized Physical Therapy
Below are just a handful of the benefits that personalized physical therapy could offer you.
Relieve Pain
The main goal of physical therapy is healing, which ultimately reduces or relieves chronic and acute pain after an injury. All injuries may cause long-lasting damage to muscles, tendons, ligaments, and soft tissues. Thankfully, studies show that physical therapy has a massive 84% success rate at relieving pain as it activates tissues and releases endorphins.
Restore Functionality
Injuries reduce functionality by restricting your range of motion. For example, a shoulder injury can prevent a full range of motion in the arm or affect grip strength. The loss of functionality may even be great enough to prevent you from managing basic tasks without help.
A personalized therapy regimen can provide targeted assistance to improve functionality so that you can better manage daily tasks.
Improve Strength
Undoubtedly, physical therapy can be a useful method to regain strength after an injury. For instance, many professional athletes who sustain injuries will undergo physical therapy to improve their muscle tone and even restore strength to pre-injury levels.
However, even if you’re not a professional athlete, physical therapy can help you regain strength after an injury. One study found that guided physical therapy incorporating strength training helped 65% of amateur athletes return to pre-injury strength after an average of seven months.
Specially Tailored
Personalized physical therapy is uniquely tailored to your specific abilities and struggles. The therapist wants to help you avoid over-strenuous physical therapy that is outside of your comfort zone and can exacerbate injuries or prevent rehabilitation. So, it takes into account factors such as:
- Your height
- Your strength
- Your body’s mechanics
- Your overall condition
- Your goals
Frequently Asked Questions
Below are some of the most common questions we receive about our personalized physical therapy services.
What Should I Wear to a Physical Therapy Appointment?
You should wear light and comfortable clothes to your physical therapy appointment. That way, you can easily move, stretch, and complete the session’s exercises. Wear clothing that exposes the treatment area, and make it loose-fit clothing for comfort that does not restrict your range of motion.
Is Physical Therapy Painful?
Physical therapy might cause pain if the sessions manipulate, treat, or stretch the injured area. However, it will reduce or relieve pain and aid in healing. A professional will monitor your session to ensure discomfort levels remain tolerable.
What Kinds of Injuries Can Physical Therapy Treat?
Physical therapy can treat injuries and conditions across a wide range, including the following:
- Back pain
- Arthritis
- Whiplash
- Carpal tunnel syndrome
- Hamstring injury
- Stroke
- Knee injuries
- Sports injuries
- Torn ligaments
- Pelvic floor dysfunction
- Sprains
- Concussions
- Joint replacement
- ACL injury
After a car accident, physical therapy may help you recover from the pain from injuries and the whiplash effects. Rehabilitation exercises target and eliminate any dysfunction to improve your comfort and accelerate your recovery.
How Do Doctors Measure Progress During Physical Therapy?
Doctors measure progress during physical therapy by taking the first session as your baseline performance. Depending on your progress, the physical therapist might update and revise the plan so that you have a unique program sensitive to your needs and abilities.
Does Insurance Cover Physical Therapy?
Yes, most insurance plans will cover physical therapy (inpatient and outpatient) as part of regular hospital treatments. Your insurance provider can answer any specific questions you have about what physical therapy treatment plan their policies will or won’t cover.
When Is Physical Therapy Done?
Professionals will do physical therapy on different timelines, depending on the severity of the injury and your overall health and fitness levels. If the injury needs a few weeks or months to heal, your primary care provider can confirm when it’s safe to continue therapy.
Top-Notch Personalized Physical Therapy Near Me
Our doctors accept most insurance plans, including workers’ compensation, no-fault, and PIP (personal injury protection). Same-day appointments may be available.
Contact Mount Prospect Health Center online or call 973-485-2332 today to schedule your personalized physical therapy session!
Read our blog to learn more about physical therapy after a car crash.
