Your life is made up of meaningful everyday activities, which in physical therapy terms are called “occupations.” Everyone has occupations. For instance, toddlers have occupations such as play and learning to develop essential skills. Older adults have occupations like meal preparation, personal care, and home maintenance. Many people don’t think much about their daily occupations until they have trouble doing them.
Help with Meaningful Daily Activities
After illness or injury, you or a loved one may be faced with the question—now what? You may find that your routine occupations are disrupted, leading to an impaired ability to do tasks that would typically be innate and simple for you. Physical therapy can focus on the things you need and want to do including your goals, your activities, and maintaining your independence.
Physical therapy employs rehabilitative processes in an effort to recover and restore those occupations. Physical therapy focuses primarily on improving everyday skills that ultimately allow a patient to have a better quality of life. With physical therapy services, you can re-engage in meaningful work and necessary daily activities.
Help with Day-to-Day Challenges
Physical therapy can help you with practical everyday tasks if you’re facing and striving to overcome challenges such as:
- Physically disability
- Recovery from an illness or operation
- Learning disabilities
- Mental health problems
- Advancing age
A physical therapy practitioner is a skilled healthcare professional who employs research and scientific evidence to ensure their treatment interventions are effective. They gather detailed knowledge of a patient’s physical, emotional, psychological, and social makeup to assess how a patient’s condition is affecting their body and mind.
A physical therapist (PT) will evaluate your overall situation with a holistic eye. With
input from you, your family, caregivers, or friends, the PT will develop individualized goals that will help you resume or pursue your routines and occupations. Once you’ve established goals with your physical therapist, both of you will work together to enact a specific intervention plan. Your treatment plan strives to improve or maintain your ability to perform regular daily activities and reach your goals of getting back to your independent life.
Help in a Variety of Settings
Sometimes, on-site treatment occurs in patients’ homes where they often engage in most of their everyday activities. Still, physical therapists work in a variety of settings beyond the home. PTs may work in hospitals, rehabilitation centers and clinics, nursing facilities, outpatient clinics, private practices, school systems, private organizations, industry, and even community agencies such as return-to-work programs and prisons. The number of different places where PTs work is growing every year.
A PT’s job is to help people in all stages of life overcome the permanent loss or lack of physical, mental, sensory, or communication function. If you need assistance and want to find out if physical therapy is right for you, ask your physician or healthcare provider for a referral for PT services or search for a private practice in your community. Call and talk to a physical therapy professional about your unique needs today. Physical therapy, like physical therapy from Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic, can make a drastic impact in your life. Call today to make an appointment.
