Unlike a regular exercise program, which focuses on improving your general strength, aerobic endurance and general fitness, therapeutic exercise is more specific. Based on the findings from your physical therapy evaluation, therapeutic exercise usually focuses on:
Whether you have suffered an injury, experienced an illness or feel you have lost your physical abilities, therapeutic exercise can treat and prevent impairment and disability while improving your overall fitness.
Though it may seem counterintuitive to perform exercises when you are in pain, specific therapeutic exercises can actually help improve blood flow to the damaged tissues, stimulate healing and give you an endorphin rush to decrease pain. Multiple studies have shown that tendons and muscles like movement, just not too much movement too fast. If you’ve experiencing pain and you’ve tried medication and rest, yet the pain does not go away, it likely won’t go away and might worsen until you’ve properly addressed the source of the problem.
Dr. Trinh is trained to evaluate your body’s function, strength, range of motion and pain level. She can create a customized plan of care that will address muscular weakness and imbalance, restore function to healing or surgically repaired joints, reduce your overall pain and help you return to the activities that matter most to you.