Millions of Americans live with pain. According to the American Academy of Pain Medicine, approximately 100 million live in chronic pain.1 Many adults have turned to prescription medicine to help their symptoms. The demand for pain-management drugs has contributed to the opioid crisis we are all too familiar with today. Physical Therapy offers lasting pain relief and hopes for a future without pain, surgery, or medication. The benefits of treating pain naturally with physical therapy are many.
Let’s take a look at the top 5
- Physical therapy treats pain at its root cause. Physical therapy is successful because it gets to the heart of the imbalances and weakness to alleviate pain rather than just masking it as pain medication does.
- A physical therapist will create an active exercise plan individually tailored to your recovery process. Physical activity can help reduce your pain, reduce swelling, improve your range of motion, promote healing, and increase overall strength and endurance.
- Medical-based research supports physical therapy, is proven to reduce pain conditions significantly, and reports improved patient outcomes.2
- One of the most significant benefits of physical therapy is that there are little to no adverse side effects. Physical therapists utilize common treatments like massage, ultrasound, joint mobilization, and electrical nerve stimulation, and all have a proven track record of high reward and low risk of side effects compared to surgery or medication.
- Physical therapy can guide you to take on a more active role in your pain management by teaching you how to become more physically active safely. When a physical therapist recognizes your areas of impairments, they will create a therapeutic regimen to target those areas and potentially reduce the likelihood of injury. The more active you are, the less pain you will experience.
People who have chronic pain are often afraid to move. You may be worried that physical therapy will increase your pain. A physical therapist will increase exercises in a gradual step-by-step way so the patient can feel safe moving again.
Physical therapy is an effective way of addressing pain, both acute and chronic. Utilizing therapeutic exercise, soft tissue, joint mobilization, and other physical therapy techniques and modalities has proven to minimize or eliminate pain and teach patients self-remedies to help avoid pain in the future. Our physical therapists at Ace PT are ready to help you stop your pain at its source.
ACE Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine Institute was founded on the principles of high ethical standards, integrity, honesty, and professionalism. When you step inside one of their eight convenient locations in the Washington Metro area, your goal becomes theirs: returning you to your normal lifestyle as quickly and safely as possible.
1. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6736a2.htm
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5396148/
