Many factors will influence your recovery. These include your exact injury, whether you’ve had the injury before, how old you are - therefore how quickly you heal, your diet, whether you smoke, whether you adhere to your physiotherapist’s advice, whether you do your exercises, and your “constitution” or natural healing ability.
One of the most important influences is when you seek treatment. The earlier you seek treatment and stick to your treatment plan, the better your likely outcome. This is because your body goes through specific healing phases, and if you seek treatment too late, or present for treatment too infrequently, your body will stop the healing process before you have completely healed. The healing phases are listed below, with the appropriate physiotherapy management listed. Your physiotherapist will construct your appointment cycle during your Results4Life™ session with you with these phases in mind.
“THE INFLAMMATORY PHASE”
From time of injury to 72 hours
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Injury is characterised by pain, swelling, redness and heat
It is necessary to initiate breakdown of damaged tissue and remove it from the injured area
Your physiotherapist will guide you through:
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Protection
Rest
Ice
Compression
Elevation
And doing NO:
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Heat
Alcohol
Running/Activity
Massage – gentle massage may be indicated at the discretion of your physiotherapist to aid early healing
“THE REPAIR PHASE”
From 48 hours to 6 weeks after injury
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Injured structures are rebuilt
Scar tissue forms, and immature, disorganised collagen (the building blocks of soft tissue such as muscle and ligaments) begins forming. This gets “laid” quickly, but isn’t as strong as the original structure
Your physiotherapist will:
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Use hands on treatment to restore normal mechanics to the injured area to allow complete healing. Abnormal mechanics continue to stress the injured structure which can prevent complete healing and also lead to muscle imbalances which can cause other problems to develop. For this reason, in most instances your physiotherapist will need to treat you two to three times a week, otherwise they cannot change the mechanics of your body for long enough to allow complete healing to take place
Identify and modify activities that you do and things in your environment, e.g. work-station set-up, height of clothesline, etc. that will otherwise lead to aggravation of your injury and disrupt the healing process
“THE REMODELLING PHASE”
From 6 weeks to 3-6 months after injury
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Collagen (the building blocks) gets stronger and is absorbed and re-arranged in a more organised manner. This needs to be effective for the injured structure in your body to regain maximum strength. If this does not happen, you will be much more likely to re-injure.
Physiotherapy management will include:
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Rehabilitation – Pilates classes, personal training (gymbased rehabilitation), and possibly monthly reviews for adjustments to exercise programs and manual therapy if needed. This is to stimulate better “Remodelling”, and also ensures efficient and correct muscle function and strength is achieved to reduce likely-hood of re-injury.
“THE MATURATION PHASE”
From 3-6 months post injury until 12 months
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Restoration of strength and durability of the injured tissue to maximize function and limit risk of re-injury
Physiotherapy management will include:
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Using the above services to achieve this, and then evolve them to benefit your overall health and wellbeing. For tendon, cartilage and spinal disc injuries, healing time frames can be expected to be longer due to poor blood supply which delays healing by up to 1 month. Your physiotherapist can advise if this applies to you For people presenting for treatment more than 3 months after their initial injury: you are in the ‘Chronic’ phase. If you still have symptoms at this stage, your body has not been able to fully heal. This means that your injury is harder to treat, and implications for your management will be discussed by your physiotherapist