In general, you should attend physical therapy until you achieve your physical therapy goals or until you and your therapist decide that your condition is serious enough that you need to reassess your goals. Soft tissue usually takes 6 to 8 weeks to heal, so the physical therapy cycle can last about that long. However, since physical therapy is designed to help you fully recover and resume your normal activities, it's important to set realistic goals. With the help of your physical therapist, you'll stay focused no matter how long it takes to reach your goals.
For your ongoing sessions, you can expect an engagement of between 30 and one hour. The key to healing is blood flow. Muscle has a rich blood supply that provides the nutrients and oxygen needed for healing, while tendons and ligaments have a limited blood supply, so they take longer to heal. Cartilage has no blood supply, making it extremely slow to heal.
This is why knee and hip physical therapy may take longer. But it also explains why physical therapy can help accelerate healing, since movement promotes joint lubrication. Bone needs to withstand loads in order to heal, so after a fracture, the bone must be immobilized for a period of time. It's a good idea to start establishing good habits early on, and that includes knowing what to wear for physical therapy.
In addition, the approach of your physical therapists will vary depending on the condition and the goals set. If they just want you to recover from the pain, you'll need fewer sessions, but if they're really trying to make it work optimally, more sessions will be needed once you don't feel pain. Each person's lifestyle will measure how often a physical therapist visits them to maintain an active and safe lifestyle, free of new or recurring injuries. The doctor recommends outpatient arthroscopic surgery to repair torn cartilage in the knee and additional physical therapy after surgery.
The physical therapist will use the results of your exam and the doctor's recommendations to design a treatment plan for rehabilitation. Once the affected area has warmed up, you and your physical therapist will begin working on your treatment plan. Make sure you follow the plan exactly: most of the work and results of physical therapy come from the work you do at home. This also gives the physical therapist an opportunity to alter the course of treatment whenever necessary for best results.
Physical therapy isn't a quick fix at the level of taking a pill, but it's much quicker than recovering from surgery. If your physical therapist is an expert in balance rehabilitation, he or she will examine you for underlying balance deficiencies. After obtaining additional images and tests, they discover that the meniscus is still damaged, despite physical therapy. See a doctor after the injury, who recommends physical therapy to strengthen the muscles surrounding the knee and keep it stable.
Other patients are content to stop these exercises at home as soon as they have completed their physical therapy program. Physical therapy can be used to treat and control a variety of conditions, including back and neck pain, stiff joints and muscles, and soft tissue injuries.
