Most people instantly assume you’ve undergone surgery when you say “occupational therapy.” Occupational therapy, on the other hand, goes beyond post-surgical treatment to help patients who have been wounded, are in pain, or have had an illness regain strength, endurance, flexibility, and stability.
It is possible to improve your health by engaging in therapeutic exercise.
Through therapeutic exercise, it is possible to have your function restored and live a life that is pain-free. Contact Dr. Physio Therapy & Wellness in Fort Lauderdale or Delray Beach, FL to schedule your consultation and find out how we can relieve your pain.
Therapeutic exercise defined
Any fitness routine should leave you feeling healthier and stronger than before you started. Therapeutic exercise at Dr. Physio Therapy & Wellness in Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach, FL has similar purposes, but it includes a variety of activities that help you regain or maintain strength, flexibility, balance, endurance, or stability. Whether you’ve been hurt, sick, or just starting to lose your physical abilities, therapeutic exercise can help you avoid impairment and disability while also improving your overall fitness. This type of exercise is usually suggested by a hand therapist as part of a hand therapy treatment regimen.
Types of Therapeutic Exercises
Each therapeutic exercise is classified by its purpose.
Relaxation
Is it true that relaxation is a form of therapeutic exercise? Yes, absolutely! While it is critical to exercise the body’s muscles, joints, and soft tissues, it is equally critical to assist them in relaxing. Heat, ice, electrical stimulation, massage, and trigger point therapy are all pain-relieving therapies that can help the body relax, improve sleep, lower blood pressure, and keep you coming back for more activity!
Muscle Performance
Good balance and stability, as well as bone and joint health, require increased power, endurance, and muscle strength. Resistance and endurance exercises are used to build muscle strength while avoiding injury.
Posture
Hours spent at desks, bending over keyboards, poor muscle tone, or simple habit can all lead to terrible posture. What you may not realize is that posture has a direct impact on muscle strength, balance and a tendency toward injury. Posture exercises are aimed at correcting poor posture, not just when you exercise, but in your life in general which can alleviate aches and pains.
Balance & Coordination
When you stand or sit, your bones and muscles work together to keep you upright. You put your muscular and skeletal systems in your body to the test every time you stand, walk, sit, brush your teeth, cook a meal, or go about your everyday tasks. The capacity to care for yourself or others is reliant on your balance and coordination of your arms, legs, hands, and feet. That is why, especially after an injury or illness, balance and coordination exercises are so vital. You lose your ability to care for yourself if you can’t balance or coordinate.
Range of Motion
These exercises are aimed at increasing the range of motion in your joints and soft tissues. This may be done through active, passive or assisted stretching activities designed to help your joints move better, without pain.
Area Specific Exercises
It’s easy to think of exercise as something we do with our muscles, but it is also important to help the body’s other systems. In these cases, exercises that target breathing or circulation may be recommended to help speed healing, improve blood flow or lower stress on the body.
Can therapeutic exercise really relieve pain?
It may seem counterintuitive to exercise when you are in pain. After all, the last thing you want to do when you are uncomfortable is make yourself more uncomfortable. Yet when you treat pain with medication and rest, you are only allowing the supporting muscles to weaken, causing greater pain and less functionality of the area.
An occupational therapist at Dr. Physio Therapy & Wellness in Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach, FL is trained to assess your body’s function, strength, and range of motion, as well as your pain levels. They can then design a treatment plan for you that includes therapeutic exercise to strengthen weak areas, restore function to recovering or surgically repaired joints, and lessen your overall pain.
Not only can you experience a pain-free life, you can do so with greater strength and endurance than before!
Therapeutic exercise could be the solution you’re looking for
Still curious how occupational therapy services and therapeutic exercise at Dr. Physio Therapy & Wellness in Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach, FL can help you? Let us conduct an evaluation and help you get on the road to recovery.
Your Next Steps…
Request An Appointment
Receive A Custom Treatment Plan
Work Hard and Progress In Your Recovery
Recover & Enjoy Life Pain-Free!