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What is Physical Therapy?

You are coming to see us at an exciting time!! We are accomplishing things in physical therapy today that we were unable to do even a decade ago. Advances are continuing to be made in all areas of rehabilitation from orthopedics, sports medicine, to neurology and geriatrics.

Physical Therapy treats the musculoskeletal system: bones, muscles, tendons, joints, ligaments and the interaction with physical movement. To come to physical therapy is to want to start moving and succeed at doing something PHYSICAL, that you are presently not able to do.

The majority of our patients here at Eugene Physical Therapy will have some complaint of pain and/or loss of function with a certain part of the body, not being able to perform some physical function or activity.  Some common examples might be injuries or chronic problems of the shoulder, knee, or foot pain, neck or back problems, or those with loss of balance or dizziness or even deconditioning following other diseases such as cancer. Our staff is trained to Evaluate your musculoskeletal problem and specifically design a treatment program tailored to the specific problems identified. Success hinges on a "team approach" between the patient and clinician, which means the patient must be involved in their own improvement, working on a home program to progress themselves.

TREATMENT

Our treatment here is unique.

Treatment is based on your specific deficits identified from your Evaluation. Each of our treatment sessions is determined by your response to the one before and your home program, with the goal of progressing towards achieving the goals set by you and the therapist. Our staff has advanced training in research based treatment regimes that has international repute.

To help improve physical function we predominantly use a combination of exercise and manual therapy (refer to our webpage) techniques. Depending on your specific problem, the exercise and other physical activities we focus on may be related to proprioception (your position sense and body awareness), balance, coordination, and agility as well as strength. Restoring movement, sometimes referred to as range of motion (ROM), as well as strength are typical goals, as well as pain reduction. Much of the profession of Physical Therapy may use a variety of treatment regimes including therapeutic modalities (ultrasound, electric stimulation, iontophoresis, cold/heat).  Our staff, however,  emphasizes a functional approach, with the goal of each session having the patient being able to do or accomplish something they could not do before. As function increases, pain generally improves; with normal function comes absence of symptoms. Although we do occasionally use therapeutic modalities, we generally use these in treatment only when a patient is in so much pain, no other form of functional therapy will be tolerated. Emphasis is given to constant progress, so as to ensure rapid progress towards the patient achieving their goals.

For more information on the History of the profession Physical Therapy, please refer to our link on our main page.

WHAT CAN I EXPECT ON MY FIRST VISIT?

You will be asked to generally come 20-30 min early to complete some medical questionnaires regarding your problem, or you may DOWNLOAD these forms from our site found here Intake Forms. Our staff will take time to get a complete understanding of your problem, including a complete history and a comprehensive evaluation of the problem you are presenting with. Goals will be set, with expected time frames given to the patient. We will do our best to give you your potential for successful rehabilitation, however, in some complicated cases we will know more after the evaluation and follow-up visits to see how fast you progress.

Your success hinges on your ability to be involved in your own care and improvement of your physical health.