Pain is probably the primary reason why anyone would seek assessment and treatment from a healthcare professional and remains the most common reason why clients initially contact Active Therapy…. The presence of pain causes reduced quality of life, altered movement and function, disturbed sleep and doesn’t make us particularly positive in mood state … It can cause lost time form work and sport and result in stress, anxiety and effect our relationships with others …
But believe it or not many people ‘put up’ with pain often thinking there is nothing that can be done or the ‘pain will look after itself’ despite having painful symptoms for weeks, months and sometimes years!
So let’s look a little deeper at some of those areas to help you understand the role of physiotherapy treatment in reduction of pain and the fact that the overwhelming majority of conditions are successfully treated.
Pain often begins from 2 primary mechanisms, either cumulative forces which result in tissue overload and subsequent pain or traumatic onset pain related to incident or injury. For those presenting with cumulative onset symptoms (these are typically the majority of presentations) we have to act like body detectives and understand the contributory factors that may have caused the pain rather than merely treating symptoms. For example this can be related to how you move, tolerate loads in daily life or sport and maybe of you have introduced new patterns to movement, training or occupation that have resulted in pain due to tissue overload.
A good example would be the client who presents with back pain which begins when completing a movement they have performed many times before (bending forward, turning, tying shoes) who experiences acute onset low back pain. It is unlikely to be THAT specific movement which has caused the pain. It is typically the point at which the tissue become over-loaded and they experience. So often a little detailed questioning allows us to understand exactly why pain has occurred at this specific time.
For those who experience pain during incident or trauma we need to fully understand the mechanism of injury as this guides our thoughts and assessment toward the target tissue that may be injured.
Our process ALWAYS begins with education – what has caused the pain, why things hurt and how am I going to get better? The treatment process often then begins with reducing a client’s pain level so they can move more freely, sleep better and function better in life. And this allows the rehabilitation process to really get going where we normalize movement, regain strength and support clients back toward normal life and return to sport.
But pain itself, or the absence of pain, is not a strong indicator of full recovery. Whilst it is the single most common reason clients arrange consultation it is a poor indicator of when you are ready to be discharged from care. Instead we evaluate pain, strength, function (life and sport) and treatment progression to indicate an appropriate point for discharge. This means that when we fix you we really hope not to see you again with the same issue! Unlike many other clinics we do not advocate therapist dependence, regular ‘check up’s’ or MOT’s – unless there is very specific indication to do so..
Instead we provide comprehensive treatment and rehabilitation then provide YOU with all the advice and exercise at the point of discharge that you need to self-manage your condition thereby empowering you to take control of your own care. We find this to be much more effective and powerful way of managing the conditions we treat …
So… If you are in pain …
Don’t let things linger as in the majority a cases we get fantastic outcomes in very short periods of time
If you have had symptoms for quite a period of time then don’t despair … Even when clients present with persistent pain which has been present for many weeks, months or years we can often achieve fantastic results by taking the time to expertly assess and focus treatment around specific known to result in effective outcomes ….
I hope you have found this information useful but please also contact me at admin@active-therapy.com or 07970110526 and I’d be happy to help further
Look forward to meeting you soon and helping on your journey toward a pain free, active lifestyle
Andrew Caldwell
Consultant Physiotherapist
Clinical Director