Starting Your Physical Therapy Treatments

Depending on the type of injury that you have suffered, you may need to undergo a lengthy treatment process. In many instances, physical therapy will be an essential part of the patient's recovery.

Understand What To Expect During Your First Physical Therapy Session

It is important for individuals to understand what they should expect from their first physical therapy sessions. Often, this session will involve a substantial amount of testing and evaluating the patient to fully determine the scope of their injuries and problems. Without this type of assessment, it would be extremely difficult for the physical therapist to craft an effective plan for helping the patient to recover. After these assessments are concluded, there may be some light work that the patient and the physical therapist will do. However, future physical therapy sessions will be almost exclusively focused on strengthening and stretching the injured areas.

Keep A Log For Any Home Exercise Work That You Do

Your time with the physical therapist will be limited, and this can make home-based exercises an important component for your recovery. To help you with staying organized and on track, you should keep a log where you can record any of the exercises that you are doing as part of your physical therapy. This will allow you to easily keep track of the exercises that your physical therapist has recommended while also allowing you to add notes describing the difficulty that you experienced and any discomfort that occurred.

Be Sure To Ask Any Questions During Your Physical Therapy Sessions

It is very common for patients that are new to physical therapy to have an assortment of questions. This is a predictable outcome, but physical therapists will be able to answer any of your questions about your treatments. Unfortunately, some patients will feel uncomfortable or silly asking their therapist some of these questions. However, this could leave you ill-prepared to make the most out of your recovery as you may be missing some important information. Some patients may intend to ask their therapist some questions, but they may forget the exact questions that they were wanting to ask when they are being evaluated. Writing down all of your questions on a notepad or even sending yourself a text message with the questions that you have will give you an easy way of reviewing these concerns so that you can be sure to ask the physical therapist all of the questions that you may have. 

To learn more, contact a local physical therapist.

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