Understanding The Various Types Of Physiotherapy And Their Benefits

Physiotherapy or physical therapy is one of the allied health disciplines. Allied health disciplines or professions are different from the standard medical professions because these mainly focus on prevention and recovery rather than specialized treatment.

Physiotherapy helps maintain, promote, and/or restore a patient’s physical condition through a series of therapeutic exercises and courses. Based on the patient’s condition and needs the type of physical therapy recommended to them varies. In this article, those various physical therapies will be explored so that you get a clear enough understanding to choose a physical therapy in case you need one.

Orthopaedic Physiotherapy

Orthopaedics deals with the musculoskeletal system, meaning everything related to the bones and muscles. This means it also includes ligaments, tendons, and joints. This is also one of the reasons why it is the most widely known type of physiotherapy.

This type of physiotherapist will have to deal with a wide range of patients, from a kid recovering from a bone fracture to an old man suffering from arthritis. And if you throw in the people with sprains and back pains too, well there’s no need to tell you about the prospective patients for this branch of physical therapy.

Neurological Physiotherapy

Neurology is all about the brain, and when we say all about the brain, it also includes the various conditions caused by the brain or to be more specific, the entire nervous system.

There are plenty of physical impairments that are caused due to an injury to the nervous system, or the other conditions associated with it. Some of the afflictions are Fibromyalgia, Sclerosis, spinal cord injury, brain injury, and Parkinson's. All of them affect the musculoskeletal system in some way or the other and cause the patient to have motor impairments. While some conditions can be treated, some persist life-long, whatever the case, Neurological physiotherapy is crucial to help the patient cope with and/or recover from their conditions.

Pediatric Physiotherapy

As the name implies, this type of physiotherapy is exclusively for children. It helps children overcome anything like deformities, disabilities, genetic disorders, or injuries from inhibiting their body movement. This is achieved through scheduled sessions to help the children while simultaneously taking care of their growth and development in a comfortable environment.

Geriatric Physiotherapy

If there was a branch of physiotherapy exclusively focused on children then an exclusive branch for the aged shouldn’t be surprising is it not? Well, here you have it- Geriatric Physiotherapy. It is physiotherapy for the elderly.

With every passing year age is not the only thing that will increase, you get back pain and knee ache too. The elderly are commonly afflicted with arthritis, stiff joints, osteoporosis, and other old age indicators. Many of these can be alleviated with the help of a geriatric physiotherapist.

Cardiovascular And Pulmonary Physiotherapy

This branch of physiotherapy helps patients suffering from heart and lung diseases cope with their conditions. The patient is made to undergo suitable exercises for them to strengthen their heart and lung. This also helps build their endurance and reduce stress thereby enhancing their body’s ability to resist future heart attacks or cope with their lung illness.

There are still plenty of Physiotherapy types, these are just the five basic categories, and these overlap with each other quite a bit too. After all, everything is interlinked with each other. In case you are in need of a good physiotherapist, this information will hopefully help you.