Physical Therapy Can Help With These Types of Accidents

If you’re injured in an accident, your main priority is to get back to normal life as quickly as you can. Luckily, physical therapy can help the body heal by reducing or eliminating your pain and helping you regain normal function after injury.

In today’s post, we cover common types of accidents successfully treated with physical therapy, and discuss how treatment works to help the body heal.

Car Accidents

Over six million car accidents happen annually. One of the most common injuries resulting from car crashes is whiplash. This condition can develop after the neck quickly extends beyond its normal range of motion (usually upon impact).

This injury can range from mild to severe, and includes debilitating  symptoms such as:

• Pain and limited range of motion in the head, neck and shoulders
• Migraines or headaches
• Dizziness and weakness
• Tingling and numbness in the arms
• In severe cases, blurred vision and memory problems

The symptoms of whiplash are brought on by misalignments in the neck vertebrae and injuries to the surrounding soft tissues such as muscles, tendons and ligaments.

Physical therapy can help these tissues heal correctly, and build strength and flexibility at the same time in order to restore your normal range of motion. Physical therapy can also help to prevent long-term damage.

If you find that you’re still stiff or experience pain from an old car accident injury, physical therapy can help restore function by building strength and elongating previously-injured soft tissue that may not have healed correctly.

Sports Injuries

Sports injuries have sidelined many great athletes for games, seasons, or even careers. However, they are an unfortunate reality of any organized sports, training exercises or fitness activities.

The good news is, most sports injuries requiring physical rehabilitation (including physical therapy) aren’t permanent.

Rehabilitation plans help athletes rebuild strength and movement in injured parts of the body. Physical therapy may also help manage pain resulting from an incident, and prevent any further permanent damage.

Physical therapists will also examine patients to identify any other weak or inflexible muscles in other areas of the body that could have contributed to the original injury. Here, they build strength and flexibility to prevent future issues.

Spinal Cord Injuries

Spinal cord injuries can occur from many kinds of accidents, and can be life-altering. Physical therapy is an essential component of rehabilitation from a spinal cord injury. This kind of treatment can take place in a hospital, rehabilitation center or spinal cord injury-focused facility.

A physical therapist is an essential component of the rehabilitation therapy team, and will work towards the following goals:

• Maximizing the patient’s sensory and functional recovery
• Prevention of secondary complications and health issues that can occur
• Helping patients reintegrate into normal life

Stroke

Patients that suffer a stroke may suffer muscle weakness and loss of everyday skills due to brain damage. They may also suffer from chronic pain.

Fortunately, it’s possible to recover some of this lost functionality through stroke rehabilitation, which can also help reduce or eliminate chronic pain.

Physical therapy helps recovering stroke victims redevelop coordination and strength, and teaches survivors new ways to perform everyday tasks to compensate for any remaining disability.

An essential component of rehabilitation from many accidents, this form of treatment can even help patients recover from old injuries, relieving chronic pain and regaining strength, functionality and range of motion.

If you’ve suffered from an accident injury, talk to your healthcare team or chiropractor about whether physical therapy could be right for you.

About the Author:

Dr. Singer has been a practicing chiropractor for more than 20 years, and USA Health & Therapy has been around since 2004. Over the course of his career, Singer has helped tens of thousands of people with all kinds of issues by using a wide variety of treatment strategies. He has extensive knowledge of chiropractic modalities, including Gonstead, Diversified, Thompson Drop Table, and Activator, and in 1997 he earned a special adjunctive Chiropractic Certification in Spinal Trauma (CCST) to better provide care for car crash victims. Dr. Singer is licensed to practice chiropractic medicine in both Florida and New York.