The human back or spine consists of various interlocking vertebrae, joints, ligaments, discs, and muscles creating a complex structure that supports human posture and movement. Due to injury or any other health ailment like a slipped disc, sciatica nerve pain, spondylolisthesis, surgery, etc., you may face episodic back pain. Ignoring such pains can be harmful. Physiotherapy is a highly effective and widely preferred treatment for relief from back pain. It is used as a single line of treatment for back pain or in combination with other modes of treatment. Read this article to know about how physiotherapy helps in back pain.
Back pain impacts life
Back pains not only hinder human working and movement abilities, but they also have a huge impact on personal and social life. According to research back pains are the most common reason for a person to visit health experts. The impacts of back pain on life are as follows:
- According to research back pain impacts nearly 60 to 80% of people and hinders them in their personal and social life [1].
- In most cases, back pain minimizes the movement and working activities.
- Nearly 23% of young adults worldwide suffer from chronic back pain [1]. Most of these back pains are reoccurring and causes huge disturbances to their life. It affects their working life and has an impact on their earning.
- Nearly 12% of the population suffers disability of movement due to back pain [1].
- Chronic back pain patients can be emotionally stressful. Such patients with chronic back pain are prone to depression [3].
Thus, ignoring back pain can be harmful. If the back pain lasts between 2 to 6 weeks or if you notice reoccurrence of back pain frequently, get physical therapy or physiotherapy treatment. Book your appointment with GoPT India’s best physiotherapist in noida.
Physiotherapy Benefits in Back Pain
Physiotherapy studies the movement of the body and aims to find out the root cause that affects the normal movement. The general goal of this physiotherapy treatment is to decrease the back pain, increase the functionalities and movement and provide proper education on maintaining your body healthy and avoiding further recurrence of pain. Physiotherapy is a highly effective and widely preferred treatment for relief from back pain. It is used as a single line of treatment for back pain or in combination with other modes of treatment.
The physiotherapy treatment varies from person to person health condition and mainly depends on the intensity of the pain and cause of the pain. The benefits of physical therapy for back pain patients are as follows:
- Proper care: It provides proper care by addressing the cause of the pain and by treating each patient with his or her needs.
- Reduced pain: The exercises, massages, and other physiotherapy treatments aim to reduce the pain and make you feel normal [2].
- Ability to move again: With proper treatment, the discomfort in movement due to pain can be removed. For example, the hot massage and electrical stimulation therapies are helpful in removing stiffness of the back muscles. Similarly, with strengthening exercise, the weak back muscles can gain strength and thus the patient’s movement can be restored slowly [2].
- Reduces the chances of back surgery: In most patients, physical therapy was effective in reducing the pain and thus reducing the need for surgery.
- Increasing awareness of your body postures and best procedures. A physiotherapist helps you in providing proper information through counseling and cognitive behavioral therapy regarding the best posture and procedures. This information is useful in following a proper lifestyle and avoiding postures or activities that can cause harm to back pain.
- Reduces the risks of injuries and falls. With proper guidelines on posture, best lifestyle, exercises, and the ways to enhance coordination and control, the body balance improves. This helps in reducing the risks of injury and falls.
What GoPT India Physiotherapist Does for Reducing Back Pain?
At our reputed GoPT physiotherapy center we follow a very systematic approach to address both acute and chronic back pain problems. The key activities are:
- Assessing and making health history record. Through patient talks and tests, we aim to gain all the possible insights on the cause of back pain.
- Passive physical therapy: Patients who are uncomfortable in doing exercises due to pain undergo passive physical therapy. It aims to reduce the pain through modalities. This includes
- Heat/ ice pack application at the pain area
- TENS units
- Iontophoresis [2]
- Ultrasound
- Soft tissue massage and manual therapy [2]
- Active therapy: Along with passive therapy the active physical exercise helps in rehabilitating the structure of the spine and thereby reduces back pain. All these exercises are properly communicated and performed with care. Patients are also given an exercise manual and necessary education so that they carry out exercise properly. Some of the exercises that are recommended are:
- Stretching exercises like hamstring stretch for removing stiffness.
- Strengthening exercises for strengthening back muscles. For example 15-20 minutes of exercises like dynamic lumbar stabilization
- Low impact aerobic exercises for 30 minutes. For example, walking, bicycling, swimming, etc. These are effective in reducing pain for a long-time.
- Other exercises: Apart from these we provide other exercises for weight management, stretching, etc. that can help in reducing back pain. For example wall squats, heel slides, Leg rising exercise, etc.
- Guidance on posture and other activities that can help in reducing pain or cause hurt to back pain further.
Physiotherapy thus can treat your back pain in more than one way. All these techniques are used as per the patient’s condition. At GoPT India center we combine the best possible approaches in treating your back pain and provide personalized care for helping you heal. GoPT India is one of the best physiotherapy centers in Noida. It will help to treat back pain quickly.
References
- Casiano VE, De NK. Back Pain. InStatPearls [Internet] 2019 Feb 24. StatPearls Publishing. Available from:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK538173/ (last accessed 21.1.2020)
- Gracey, J.H., McDonough, S.M. and Baxter, G.D., 2002. Physiotherapy management of low back pain: a survey of current practice in Northern Ireland. Spine, 27(4), pp.406-411.
- Currie, S.R. and Wang, J., 2004. Chronic back pain and major depression in the general Canadian population. Pain, 107(1-2), pp.54-60.
