How Can Physiotherapy Modalities Help With Pain Management?

How Can Physiotherapy Modalities Help With Pain Management?

1 in 5 Americans lives with chronic pain, according to the CDC. Managing pain is not always easy, and finding the right treatment requires time and patience. However, physiotherapy is one of the most widely used treatments to address headaches, back, neck, shoulder, and knee pain. Whether it is acute or chronic, a doctor will thoroughly examine and propose suitable physiotherapy modalities to ease your pain.  Read on to discover how physiotherapy can help ease your pain and where to find the best physiotherapy chiropractor in Huntsville, Texas.

What Is Physiotherapy?

Physiotherapy or physical therapy uses physical methods to treat injury, disease, or a health condition. The goal is to improve your health, strengthen muscles, restore range of motion, and overcome health issues. As a consequence, physical therapy can reduce pain and improve a patient’s quality of life. Physiotherapists employ different physical therapy models to help people overcome their health challenges. Here are some of the most common physiotherapy modalities:

Manual Therapy 

Manual therapy includes physical treatment and manipulation of joints and muscles. It helps improve circulation, increase range of motion, boost healing, and reduce pain.  There are countless different forms of manual therapy, but massage therapy is the most common. Other manual therapy modalities include dry needling, cupping, myofascial release, manual stretching, active release, trigger point therapy, and more. Manual therapy can help with pain in different areas of your body, including the neck, back, shoulders, arms, legs, and buttocks.

Electrical Stimulation

Electrotherapy includes a range of modalities that use electrical current to manage pain, improve circulation, stimulate bone growth, strengthen muscles, and improve physical health. Electrical stimulation includes a device that emits mild electric currents via electrodes, which induces healing processes in the body. It can help ease chronic pain and fatigue in people with fibromyalgia, diabetic nerve pain, migraines, and more. Some of the most popular electrotherapy modalities include transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, H-Wave therapy, interferential therapy, neuromuscular electrical stimulation, and more.

Thermal Modalities

Heat and cold therapies are an excellent way to alleviate pain by reducing inflammation and altering pain signals traveling to your brain. That’s why these physiotherapy modalities are great for musculoskeletal and nerve pain.  The most common options include cryotherapy, heat therapy, infrared radiation, wax therapy, and laser therapy.

Non-Thermal Modalities

Non-thermal modalities don’t use heat or cold for the treatment. The most popular type is ultrasound, where a machine uses specific wavelengths to penetrate the muscles. That increases the temperature and improves circulation, which promotes healing and relaxation. Other types of non-thermal physical therapy options include low-level laser therapy, shortwave therapy, microwave therapy, low-intensity pulsed ultrasound, magnetic therapy, and more.

What Type of Physical Therapy Should I Get?

You need a medical professional to examine you and find the cause of your pain in order to propose the right physical therapy option. You can get that at the Joint & Spine Center, where Dr. Jeffrey Pruski and his team use different physiotherapy modalities to help people manage pain.  Click here to learn how you can contact us and schedule an appointment to eliminate the pain.

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