Physical therapy is capable of helping our Manotick clients with addressing conditions and injuries affecting their balance, motion and mobility. Our trained professional physiotherapists are able to offer a range of treatments for our clients to help them return to their normal levels of ability.
Losing your sense of balance, your mobility or your range of motion is more thank simply inconvenient, these health issues can be absolutely life-altering. Clients may find themselves opting out of activities that they love or giving up on pastimes or hobbies because they worry that with their reduced mobility, they may injure themselves further.
Some people actually do injure themselves further by undertaking activities that are beyond their capacity or that put excessive strain on parts of their body that they may not even realize have been seriously injured in the first place.
In combatting all of this, physiotherapy takes the stage! The physical therapy team at our Manotick centre are able to offer up a number of treatments, including passive and active therapies to patients who are suffering from a deteriorated sense of balance, reduced mobility and a restricted range of motion.
How can physiotherapy help me recover my range of motion?
As will all physiotherapy treatments, the program our physical therapists will develop to help restore your range of motion will depend on your specific case. Some causes of a reduced range of motion can include chronic pain, muscle spasms, acute physical injuries, invasive surgeries, bad posture and more.
Our physiotherapists provide treatments to improve your range of motion using both passive (treatments conducted on a patient by a professional such as massage) and active (treatments provided through prescribed exercises that will be taught to you and overseen by a professional) and active modalities.
The key when it comes to the loss of range of motion in your body will be the prescription of active physiotherapy exercises targeting the part of your body that is experiencing a reduced range of motion, whether that be your mid-back from sitting at your desk all day, to your hips or legs after surgery. The exercises recommended for these issues will often include stretches designed to help your muscles, ligaments and tendons to become used to stretching and being engaged to their full elasticity.
How can physical therapy help me to recover my mobility?
The ways physiotherapy can help to restore a client's mobility, like with their range of motion, will depend on the specific kind of injury or condition that is inhibiting their mobility. It will also depend on the degree to which a client's mobility is impacted.
For example, we can offer therapies and treatment plans for patients who have had their functional mobility impacted by disease, physical trauma or a developing condition. A person's functional mobility is their ability to go about their regular life and do activities like move around in bed or go to the store to get groceries.
Treatments that are designed to help a patient to recover a certain percentage of their functional mobility will look very different from treatments tailored to the needs of someone who has lost a significant amount of mobility in their neck.
As with a reduced range of motion, physiotherapy treatments to help patients recover their mobility are a blend of both treatments our physiotherapists will conduct on you such as hot and cold packs, manual therapy and more, as well as a series of prescribed stretches and exercises, with the aid of your physiotherapist if required, to help return you to your normal level of mobility.
How can physiotherapy help me restore my sense of balance?
Our sense of balance relies on 3 different senses and systems working together: a fluid-filled organ in our inner ears called the vestibular system, our vision, and a sense called proprioception. Our Manotick physical therapists are able to offer treatment that can gradually assist these internal functions to start doing their job properly again. Stop us if we are repeating ourselves too much, but the exact treatments that we prescribed will be dependent on the unique case of a given client and the cause of their loss of balance.
However, because you are trying to give your brain and systems as much "practice" as possible with keeping your balance in safe environments, one of the most common ways of helping to restore your sense of balance and then maintain it involves specialized exercises designed to engage your sense of balance without putting you at risk of a fall.
As with any physiotherapy treatment, our Nepean physical therapists will start you out small and slow with prescribed balance and coordination exercises. With prescribed exercises and professional guidance, we will be able to help you regain your balance and your confidence in participating in the activities you love.