Physical Therapy: It Keeps You Runnin’
Physical therapy has established itself in the medical system as the health care providers to see should you sustain an injury. We help restore your capabilities if an unfortunate event were to occur and you cannot get back to where you want to be independently. This is a noble effort, and should not be underestimated, I work with many people every day that fall in to this category. There is an often-overlooked aspect of physical therapy that can also be helpful, the one where it keeps you feeling good to do the things you want to do, it keeps you runnin’.
Moving well and feeling good are things most of us either take for granted, or wish we had more of. As time moves forward, we tend to lose a little of both, until we reach a point where we cannot do the things we used to do. However, if we diligently pay attention, we can recognize when things are backsliding. Aches and pains crop up, activities become more challenging, things hurt. Physical therapy can be a place to start getting back to where you want to be. My focus in many client interactions is to identify the issues at hand, measure where the deficits lie, and promote the changes needed to get back to the desired capacity of my patients.
As a physical therapist there are a number of tools at my disposal that help me not only identify where problems might reside, but also how to address them. These tend to look like manual therapy, where I use my hands or another instrument to provide a new movement sensation. This may be needed for the same reasons we take our cars to a mechanic; we do not know how to get the car to running like it used to.
The manual interventions are then typically followed by an exercise specifically prescribed for the client. The exercises provided are a way to solidify changes made by the manual therapy. They are the necessary ingredients that keep things running smoothly.
Physical rehabilitation does not have to require an injury. We all maintain aspects of our lives to ensure they operate the way we would like them to. Our bodies require maintenance too. Waveform physical therapy can be what keeps you runnin’.
Austin Ulrich, Physical Therapist
