As a physiotherapist, you’ll focus on identifying and maximising movement to improve the health and wellbeing of your patients. It's important to find a health-care professional that empowers you to participate in appropriate exercise, develop skills to self-manage your aches and pains and maintain a healthy, active lifestyle. During manipulation, your physiotherapist may use short, sharp movements (‘thrusts’) to move your joint beyond its normal range of movement.

Acupuncture and dry needling can be associated with mild, temporary side-effects, like pain, bruising and bleeding at the injection site. You may need a referral from your GP to have physiotherapy on the NHS, although in some areas it's possible to refer yourself directly.Make sure you visit your GP first to get a correct diagnosis and maybe get them to refer you to your local NHS physiotherapist first. Treatment involves a combination of active and passive therapies, including joint manipulation and mobilisation, massage, as well as postural advice and exercise programs.

But, as Colquhoun points out, “in the more than 120 years since chiropractic and osteopathy were invented, there is still no convincing evidence that either works, even for back pain, never mind the much more far-fetched claims that their practitioners often make.In addition to touch, massage and movement, a physiotherapist might use ultrasound or a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator (TENS) machine to treat your problem area. Exercise tends to be the main focus of treatment for PTs because exercise has been proven to help you move better and feel better. Physiotherapy sessions usually last around 30 minutes to an hour, depending on what treatments you’re having. Manipulation, or manual therapy, the joint-thrusting treatment both professions are best known for, has been tested for low-back pain with apparently positive results, but the studies have been largely panned for being too small or of poor quality. It has been reviewed by appropriate medical or clinical professionals and deemed accurate on the date of review.

Ultrasound work in a similar way to deep massage by generating movement and heat in the soft tissues targeted by the machine which releases tension in the area. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. Charlotte Ganderton is a lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology and is a member of the Australian Physiotherapy Association.

Anecdotally, we think that physiotherapists and osteopaths are well equipped to implement an active management plan for your aches and pains. Physical therapists in the states can be found in stand-alone outpatient clinics, schools, nursing homes, or in cardiac rehab centers. Think of a chiropractor and you’ll picture a white-coated person leaning over a patient and giving them a short, sharp, vertebrae-crunching twist to the head. Physiotherapy helps with back pain or sudden injury, managing long-term medical condition such as asthma, and in preparing for childbirth or a sporting event. Surprisingly, Sell isn’t completely dismissive of chiropractic or osteopathy for people with low-back pain, for which he says there is probably no harm.