Physical therapy is the use of strength and range of motion exercises to help you recover from an injury or surgery. Physical therapy can take place for a few weeks depending on the type of injury or surgery that a person underwent. It comprises various treatment methods that develop or restore movement, promote healing and functioning, and even educate children and their families. It helps a patient who has a temporary or permanent disability due to injury, surgery, disease, birth defect, or pain. Physical therapy however much it might sound appealing it has both pros and cons.
Pros:
1. Physical therapy reduces or eliminates pain. Exercises such as joint and soft tissue mobilization can help in relieving pain and restore muscle and joint functioning to reduce pain. After an injury, it can be easy to relieve pain through physical therapy. The joints and muscles that were injured are worked gradually to enhance healing and the pain is reduced.
2. It improves mobility. For people that have trouble while standing, walking, or moving physical therapy can be of great assistance to you. Your age does not matter when considering if to take up physical therapy to enhance mobility. Stretching and strengthening exercises help restore the ability to move. Movement can be enhanced and improved through each day’s gradual exercises.
3. It helps improve your balance and prevent falls. If you are on a journey of physical therapy, you are likely to get screened for fall risk. If the screenings show that you are at high risk of falls, therapists will provide exercises that will safely and carefully challenge your balance. There are also exercises that help in enhancing coordination and also others enhance safer walking. If the balance problem has been caused by a problem in the vestibular system, there are exercises that restore proper vestibular functioning.
4. It helps manage diabetes and vascular conditions. Physical therapy helps in controlling blood sugar. There is an overall management plan endowed with exercises that will help a person in regulating blood sugar. Diabetes also has sensation problems in the feet and legs. Through physical therapy, a patient is able to learn proper foot care that will help prevent similar problems in the future.
5. It helps manage heart and lung diseases. Some patients that may be receiving cardiac rehabilitation after they faced a heart attack or procedure, may be in for physical therapy if their daily functioning is affected. There are several pulmonary problems that require physical therapy to improve the quality of strengthening, conditioning, and breathing exercises that help clear fluids in the lungs.
5. Helps manage age-related issues. There are certain issues that affect people of different ages. For example blood sugar disease among the aged. These issues can be reduced or curbed through the administration of physical therapy.
6. It helps avoid surgery. Physical therapy can help reduce pain or heal an injury. If this is achieved through physical therapy then there is no need for a person undergoing surgery.
7. It helps recover from a stroke. Stroke inhibits and limits some degree of functioning and movement in a person’s body. It is through physical therapy that the balance and normal functioning of the body.
8. It helps recover from a sports injury. A physical therapist has an understanding of different injuries that can be caused by sports and thus they have different exercises that they administer to people that suffer sports injuries. These exercises ensure a safe return to sports.
10. It helps manage women’s health and other conditions. There are special physical therapies related to women’s health. They can be administered when women have special health conditions for example, during pregnancy and post-partum care.
Cons:
1. Physical therapy can be very expensive. Physical therapy can be very expensive considering the fact that the patient had an injury and has come from the hospital lately. Patients use a lot of money in hospitals and at the same time they are required to pay for their physical therapy, this might be a challenge to some. Health insurance covers some or all the cost but it takes time and very procedural follow-ups.
2. Limited equipment. The availability of many larger machines and tools used for physical therapy has been a challenge for some time. Patients that require intensive therapy that might be too difficult and costly to acquire remain disadvantaged because some of the therapists lack the capacity to acquire them. Sometimes it can become very difficult to achieve comprehensive therapy because of the lack of this equipment.
3. Additional costs. It is the duty of a patient to cater for any additional costs apart from the paid therapy session. For patients that can barely move out of their homes, therapists are required to travel to their homes if the patients are ready to cater to their transport cost. There is a challenge to some of the patients because raising these amounts of money is a challenge.
4. Environmental stresses. There are some physical therapy centers that are overcrowded and very stressful for patients. The last thing you would want for a loved one that is recovering from surgery or injury is stress. Stress disturbs the patients and in the long run, slows down their recovery process.
5. Increased number of fake specialists. Fraudsters have noted the great demand for physical therapists in the market today and have opted to brand themselves. They are conning the unsuspecting customers that need physical therapists. The problem with giving someone who is unqualified a job is that they are likely to cause more harm than good.
6. Insurance obstacles. Insurance companies are very reluctant to embrace a new form of treatment with physical therapy is one of them. Other insurance companies also have the selected outpatient centers that they work with which limits people in other centers.
7. Reluctant body. If your body is reluctant to work out and heal from the injury or surgery it might be very difficult for you to heal. The therapist might have a difficult time working with you too.
8. Results are different in different people. The results of physical therapy are different in different patients because of the different levels of the therapy or because of how much the patients might be willing to cooperate.
9. Undesired and inflexible assignments. The different assignments that the therapist might assign to the patients may be undesired or they may not seem appealing to the patient. If the patient develops a negative attitude towards the therapy it will be very hard working with him or her.
10. Age problem. Most of the patients that require physical therapy mostly are aged people because they have different complications and health issues. There are some of the exercises that are beneficial to them but their bodies can’t perform.
