Many people think of physical therapy as helpful for people recovering from an injury or surgery, but the benefits of physical therapy—and the number of people who can be helped by it—are much broader.
In previous articles we’ve talked about how physical therapy can be an excellent form of preventive care or a regular wellness practice, and even how physical therapy can help people maintain mobility and independence as they age. In this article, we’d like to focus on a few of the conditions physical therapy is shown to be effective in addressing.
Orthopedics
Orthopedics is the area of medicine that deals with the musculoskeletal system—in other words, your muscles, bones, joints, and soft tissue like ligaments and tendons. Physical therapy at Core3 can be highly effective in the treatment of a wide variety of orthopedic issues, but here are just a few that may surprise you:
- Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Pain, numbness, tingling, or weakness in the palm side of your hand and radiating up our arm. Physical therapy can use stretching and exercises of the hand and wrist to address carpal tunnel syndrome.
- Plantar Fasciitis: Pain in your heel from the tissue that runs along the bottom of your foot being inflamed. Physical therapy can use modalities like taping and ice therapy, as well as stretching and exercises for the foot, ankle, and lower leg muscles.
- Osteoporosis: A condition caused by the body not being able to keep up with producing new bone tissue; as a result, bones become brittle and weak. Physical therapy can help you improve your posture and balance to maintain better bone health and avoid falls.
Women’s Health:
There are many health issues that are particular to women, and physical therapy is on the leading edge of helping to treat them. Here are just a few of the conditions women can turn to physical therapy for relief from:
- Prenatal/postpartum discomfort: Women experience a lot of physical and hormonal changes before and after pregnancy that can affect their posture, spinal mobility, and multiple aspects of the musculoskeletal system. This can place women at risk for sciatic pain, myofascial pain, lumbar pain, and more. Core3 Physical therapy can use a variety of modalities to address joint pain, muscle imbalances, and even pain from Cesarean and episiotomy scars.
- Urinary leakage: Incontinence can be caused by a number of factors, and involves difficulty holding urine or feeling an urgent need to empty the bladder frequently. The Physical therapists at Core3 use different modalities to address the muscles of the pelvic floor to help strengthen them. These modalities can include Kegel exercises, muscle strengthening exercises, and E-stim or biofeedback.
- Painful intercourse: When women experience pain during sex, the reasons can include factors involving muscles, joints, tissues, and nerves. Specially trained physical therapists like the professionals at Core 3 Physical Therapy can use pelvic floor physical therapy to support blood flow, balancing, and toning of the pelvic muscles to alleviate pain during intercourse.
These are just a few of the many conditions that physical therapy can help treat so that people can live their lives in as functional and pain-free a way as possible. Can physical therapy help you? Reach out to the experts at Core 3 Physical Therapy today to find out!