Yes, physical therapy is effective, really! It can relieve pain, rehabilitate a patient, and in turn, improve the patient’s quality of life. In fact, it’s a proven method for relieving pain, rehabilitating injury, reducing inflammation, improving mobility, recovery after surgery, managing certain chronic conditions, and more. Let’s talk a bit more about these benefits!

Commonly, physical therapy is done to relieve a patient’s pain. The therapy can accomplish this in the short term or long term and may even eliminate a patient’s pain entirely and prevent it from returning. Pain relief is a major benefit of physical therapy and a benefit you can almost certainly expect. You can expect reduced inflammation too.

Also, physical therapy may be done to improve function and mobility. For instance, if a patient is experiencing a problem with balance, physical therapy stretching and strengthening exercises can improve joint stabilization and muscle strength to help the patient balance better. Actually, these things can be improved even if a patient isn’t experiencing any issues at all and wants to prevent injury in the future. Stress fractures can be prevented, for example. Other injuries can be prevented too, so many athletes will get physical therapy as a preventive measure, and many seniors will get it for the same reason. Injuries like stress fractures, labrum tears, and others can be treated with physical therapy.

On top of all that, physical therapy can even help patients with chronic orthopedic conditions like arthritis. And since it can be very rehabilitative, physical therapy can also be done for joint rehab, post-surgical rehab, and other kinds of rehabilitation.

This depends on what you’re going to physical therapy for. Typically, though, you’ll be going two to three times per week, at least initially. This is very typical of post-surgery physical therapy or post-injury physical therapy. This frequency is important, as it has proven to be most effective in restoring range of motion and strength. After a while, your physical therapist may recommend fewer sessions.

During an initial consultation with a professional like one of ours at The Orthopedic Group, the professional will ask you about your symptoms, any condition you have, and other relevant things, and decide whether physical therapy would work for you. If so, the professional will tell you more about what kind of frequency you can expect for your physical therapy sessions.

You can come to The Orthopedic Group to see one of our orthopedists and receive a referral for physical therapy if you require it. We’ve partnered with Optimum Physical Therapy so we can provide our patients with high-quality physical therapy in their area. Our clinic has multiple locations in Leesburg, Lansdowne, and Stone Springs, so please see our Locations page for the location near you, then call us at that location if you believe you may need a referral for physical therapy. You can book a consultation with us from that page. We serve patients from Leesburg VA, Lansdowne VA, Stone Springs VA, Dulles, VA, Ashburn VA, Sterling VA, Aldie VA, South Riding VA, Herndon VA, Winchester VA, Reston VA, and Chantilly VA.

We hope you found our Q&A helpful and that we speak with you soon!