What physiotherapy does and how it could change your life

What physiotherapy does

Physiotherapy is a branch of healthcare that focuses on restoring, maintaining, and improving your movement and physical function.

Physiotherapy commonly treats problems affecting the musculoskeletal system, which includes your muscles, bones, joints, ligaments, and tendons. It also works with your neurological and cardiorespiratory systems.

How physiotherapy can be life-changing

Pain that affects your movement can be debilitating. It can impair your quality of life and make you less independent. It can stop you from living an active life and prevent you from doing the things you love.

But physiotherapy could help to change that. Reducing pain and discomfort, improving your range of movement, and helping you move more freely and easily. So you can get back to the lifestyle you enjoy.

Most people who see a physiotherapist have a goal. Something that will make a real difference to them. For example, wanting to dance with their partner, explore a new place on foot, or reach down and pick up their grandchild. Achieving these goals can be life-changing.

Relief from age-related niggles

Many people see minor discomfort or twinges as something we have to accept as we get older. But that’s often not the case.

Physiotherapy can help to improve and even overcome these smaller niggles, so they don’t get worse and you don’t have to give up doing the things you love.

Tackling emotional challenges

Constant aches and pains can be emotionally draining for people of any age. But this can be doubly challenging when the pain is restricting your life.

Maybe you’re a teenager with knee pain and you feel excluded when your friends play sports. Maybe you’re an adult who’s had a sports injury and you feel your recovery has stalled. Or maybe you’re an older person who can’t get out as much and you feel your world is getting smaller.

By addressing the physical pain, which has become a barrier to living the way you want to, physiotherapy can help with the emotional challenges, too.

Recovering from pain or injury

Pain isn’t always something you have to tolerate. A physiotherapist can often provide treatment to help reduce or eliminate pain when other things have failed.

Physiotherapists can also guide your recovery from injury, helping you regain your strength, balance and confidence.

From back pain to no pain

A patient came to Hatt Clinic with agonising back pain. He’d been told he would just have to put up with it, but he didn’t want to accept that.

Hatt Clinic’s physio team were determined to make a change and turn things around. With their expert treatment and advice, the man no longer suffers with back pain. He’s now able to go running and cycling with his family and has regained his zest for life.

What physiotherapy could do for you

If you want to stay healthy and active, particularly as you age, here are a few ways a physiotherapist can help you:

Reducing or managing your pain

In the UK, 32% of people are living with a musculoskeletal condition.

These conditions can cause pain and functional limitation. But with support from a physiotherapist, they can be treated, or at least managed, even in the long term.

If you can treat or manage your pain, it won’t dictate your life. You’ll be able to take back control and get back to doing what you enjoy.

Improving your movement and mobility

If you have limited movement — for example, due to ageing, injury, illness or surgery — physiotherapy can help you regain it.

It works by:

• Increasing the range of motion in your joints
• Strengthening your muscles
• Improving your balance and coordination
• Restoring normal movement patterns.

Supporting your recovery

If you’ve had illness, injury or surgery, physiotherapy can help you recover safely and reduce the risk of re-injury, chronic pain or long-term disability.

Helping you avoid surgery

For most people, surgery is a daunting prospect. It can be invasive, there may be risks and it can take time to fully recover.

But, while certain injuries require surgical intervention, there are many occasions when surgery can be avoided with the support of a physiotherapist.

Physiotherapists can help manage or eliminate your pain by improving your overall physical fitness, making you stronger and your body more resilient.

Preventing injury

You may be more prone to falls and injuries. For example, if you’re older, if you have issues with your balance, or if you’ve been injured before.

A physiotherapist can perform a simple movement test that will highlight the strong and weak areas of your body. They’ll use this information to put together a personalised exercise programme for you.

The exercises will be designed to help:

• Improve areas where you’re not moving correctly
• Strengthen weak or vulnerable areas of your body
• Improve your posture or activity technique
• Restore normal movement patterns.

Improving these areas will also improve your rate of recovery if you injure yourself in the future.

Book physiotherapy at Hatt Clinic

Now you understand what physiotherapy does and how it could change your life, are you ready to try it for yourself?

Maybe you’re suffering with aches and pains and want to see if physio could help.

Perhaps you have a physical goal you’d like to achieve. Our physiotherapists and sports therapists can help with everything, from getting out of bed without groaning to honing your running technique.

Or maybe you’ve had an illness, injury or surgery and would like our physio team to support your recovery.

Learn more about our physio and sports therapy services.

To book an appointment online, visit our online booking page and select Physiotherapy or Sports Therapy from the menu.

Alternatively, you can email us at: enquiries@hattclinic.co.uk

Or call your nearest clinic:

Devizes: 01380 730473

Frome: 01672 516580

Marlborough: 01373 452604