PT Month: Improving Your Life with Physical Therapy

Chances are that you likely never thought about physical therapy unless you had an acute injury, were dealing with some chronic movement problem, or had another urgent need that brought you to the PT’s door. October is National Physical Therapy Month, and a great time to remember that physical therapy can play a huge role in not just specific short-term issues, but overall much bigger, quality-of-life issues.

Five Ways Physical Therapy Can Improve Your Life

  1. Break a Bad Cycle: We talk about fear-avoidance often. Fear-avoidance is basically what it sounds like: you fear pain, discomfort, or other negative consequences, so you avoid taking any action that might trigger what you fear. Unfortunately, the fear-avoidance itself often becomes a much bigger problem. Physical therapy can help you learn healthy, balanced movement patterns and what activities are best for you, as well as others you might avoid.
  1. Learn Healthy Movement: Your body will take the easiest path, although it might not be the healthiest movement pattern. Over time, those easy-but-improper movement patterns can cause major problems. Your physical therapist will help re-program your body’s movement so you’re moving in a healthy, strong way that works for you – not against you.
  1. Improve Your Outlook: Many physical therapists know that part of their job is helping put their clients at ease, and educating them about their injury/issues. Your PT will spend time educating you on your condition, what may have contributed to it, how you’ll work together toward recovery, and how to prevent re-injury in the future. By having an expert working with you side-by-side, most people find their anxiety and uncertainty dramatically decreases.
  1. Help You Recover, With Added Benefits: Not only will seeing a physical therapist after injury help get you on the road to recovery, but you’ll also learn proper movement patterns, gain strength, and learn how to prevent future injury. Although no one likes to be injured, once you return to your lifestyle and activities, you’ll be in better shape and understand how to prevent that injury from happening again. Knowledge is power!
  1. Help You to Help Yourself: Once you graduate from physical therapy, you’ll take all your progress plus everything you learned with you. You’ll know what stretches and exercises to do going forward and how to keep your forward momentum going. You’ll also know what to watch for, and if the need arises that you can make an appointment with your physical therapist for an assessment.

These are just five of the ways that physical therapy can benefit your life, and there are plenty of others. If you’re ready to see for yourself how PT can help improve your life, Body One Physical Therapy is ready to help. We’re locally-owned and operated, and have three convenient locations serving Central Indianapolis: North Indianapolis, Fishers, and Zionsville. Our expert team of physical therapists work with clients of all ages and activity levels, and we’d love to add you to our list of happy, healthier patients. Call today for your first appointment!