Physiotherapy is a specialized treatment used for both prevention of and rehabilitation from physical injuries given to those who suffer physical pain due to injury, disease or disability.
If you have been referred to a physiotherapist, you can expect a unique session focused on you and your individual needs. The physiotherapist will assess and diagnose your condition before designing a personalized treatment plan to facilitate your healing.
This personalized plan will include exercises you will be expected to do at home. Throwing a whole exercise regime into your life may be difficult, but there are ways to easily incorporate your physio exercises into your life.
Getting the Most Out Of Physiotherapy
Seeing a physiotherapist isn’t always enough to facilitate your healing and correct your injury. Follow these steps to get the most out of your physiotherapy treatment:
- Be open and honest about your pain and condition. Your physiotherapist can’t help you if they don’t know exactly what is wrong.
- Commit to your appointments. Physiotherapists determine the frequency of your appointments based on the severity of your injury.
- Do your homework. Healing isn’t going to happen in the physiotherapist’s office. The exercises prescribed to you require repetition and consistency over time in order to heal your injury.
It’s understandable that finding time to complete at home physio exercises can be a challenge – but it is imperative to your healing.
Useful Tips for Doing Physio Exercises At Home
1. Schedule Your Physio Exercises
Make time in your daily schedule to complete your physio exercises (which should only take about 15-30 minutes).
If you need a visual reminder, write down your exercises on a calendar or enter them in to your Google calendar.
You can also set an alarm or reminder on your phone when it is time to do your exercises.
2. Prioritize Your Physio Exercises
If you find that your physiotherapist has prescribed more exercises than you can handle in your schedule, ask her or him which 3-5 exercises are the most important. Focus on completing those before moving on to the rest.
Otherwise, you can mention your time concerns to your physiotherapist and talk about modifying your treatment plan to shorten the time is takes to do the physio exercises.
3. Include Your Physio Exercises Into Your Daily Routines
You can easily multitask many physio exercises by including them in your daily routines.
For example, you may already have a workout regime and visit a gym regularly. You can incorporate your physio exercises into your workout. You may also want to inquire as to whether your therapist can visit you at home.
Even if you aren’t a gym-goer, you can perform some exercises while you are waiting in line at the grocery store or waiting for your morning coffee to brew.
Do your physio exercises throughout the day whenever you can.
4. Don’t Overdo It
It is very important that you follow your physiotherapist’s instructions as closely as possible.
You may think adding more weight or more repetitions will speed the healing process but it can cause additional injury as well as set you back on your recovery. Take time to recover.
Doing more isn’t going to help you heal any faster, so stick to your physiotherapist’s plan.
5. Be Patient
Creating a new habit takes time as does healing your body.
It’s easy to get frustrated and want to give up doing your physio exercises at home – simply focus on your progress, even if it doesn’t seem like you’re making that much.
Healing Happens At Home
You can’t rely on your physiotherapy appointments to heal your body.
It’s like going to the dentist – if you only had your teeth flossed during your appointments, and never did it at home, you wouldn’t have healthy teeth.
Use these helpful tips to make doing your physio exercises at home less of a challenge in your life.
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