how often should you visit a physical therapist?
First contact with physiotherapist
You were caught with pronounced back pain or some other part of the musculoskeletal system and decided to contact a physiotherapist for help.
One of the natural questions you're sure to have is "How many treatments do I need to solve my problem?”.
But is this question adequate without a physiotherapist examination first?
Do you need to ask this question if you want optimal therapy?
You definitely don't need to ask this question, because every top expert will tell you that he can't know the exact number of treatments without examining you in detail in his office.
First visit to the physiotherapist
After you have agreed by phone or e-mail for the exact appointment with the physiotherapist, you will come in for the initial examination.
At the initial examination, your therapist will review your medical history and make all the necessary diagnostic tests to figure out what the exact problem is.
Depending on the therapist after the initial examination you will immediately have the first therapy which the therapist has determined is appropriate for your problem.
In our office, immediately after your first arrival, we perform an examination and therapy in order to solve your problem as soon as possible.
How to know the exact number of treatments?
After the initial examination and treatment, the physiotherapist will need to assess the reaction of your body and the response of your specific problem to the treatment used.
Namely, each organism reacts individually and it is impossible to say exactly that your organism will react to the same therapy as the organism of another person or patient.
For this reason, it is extremely difficult for the therapist to estimate the exact number of treatments at the first examination without seeing how your body responds to a certain type of therapy and stimuli.
Rehabilitation course
When you come to the the second treatment at the physiotherapist, you should already see together what your reaction to each therapy is and how many treatments roughly will it take to solve the problem.
We wrote here roughly for a reason because physical therapy and rehabilitation is not a linear process where everything is getting better all the time, and worsening may occur during therapy depending on your compliance with the instructions that the physiotherapist gave you.
Completion of rehabilitation
The goal of every rehabilitation is to bring the patient's body in a state before injury or disorder that is the reason for starting the therapy.
After you have worked with a physiotherapist to bring your body into optimal state ,a physical therapist will give you further instructions so that the problem does not return.
These further instructions will mostly include exercises that you need to do on a regular basis, behavior modification which originally caused you to have problems, and instructions in what situations you should contact the therapist again..
Regular maintenance?
I'm sure you've heard many times from your therapist that you're going to need regular massages, chiropractic, cupping or any other form of therapy to ”maintain your condition".
This is simply not true, and it is a way for your therapist to take more money.
The only way to”maintain" favorable situations obtained with therapy is regular active exercise and modification of the activity that has caused problem for you in the start.
Additional treatments are needed exclusively when severe symptoms occur again because it means that you did some of the previous 2 things wrong in the meantime.
In this situation, we would recommend that when the first symptoms appear, you immediately contact a physiotherapist because the more “fresh” symptoms are, the easier it is to resolve them.
The right path to rehabilitation
1. In the fist contact with the physiotherapist do not ask questions about the number of therapies
2. The first visit to the physiotherapist will allow you to learn more about your problem and to determine the exact therapy
3. The exact number of treatments is impossible to know because each organism reacts individually
4. After the first treatment, the physiotherapist will know more about the number of treatments, but the rehabilitation process is not linear.
5. Rehabilitation ends when your organism and body are restored to their pre-injury or pre-disorder state.
6. Regular maintenance is not necessary if you exercise regularly and follow all instructions received from the therapist.
If you have a problem, contact a physical therapist as soon as possible!
The longer the problem lasts, the longer it will take to solve the problem.
Do not allow yourself to create a chronic problem and contact the physiotherapist as soon as the problem occurs!
In our office we regularly solve problems such as sciatica, pain around the scapula, pain in the cervical spine, injuries of individual joints and many others problems related to the musculoskeletal system.
Feel free to contact us to find out immediately if we can solve your problem!
Bsc. PT. Toni Marić
Toni is bacc. physical therapist and the owner of the Ad Sacrum clinic who has been treating top athletes for years and also teaches at the Dry needling courses for physiotherapists.
free guide
5 things to do before visiting a physical therapist (Croatian language)
Find out what you need to do before a first visit to a physical therapist. Carrying out these steps will enable you to have more successful and faster rehabilitation process!
