Our Services
Physical Therapy
Physical therapy is a standard branch of medicine that helps you improve your range of motion and increase muscle flexibility. In short, it can give you back your strength all while reducing pain, regardless of the physical trauma you sustained before you came to visit the office. From diabetes to car accidents to strokes, people can be referred to physical therapists for numerous reasons. Sometimes, they’re required to go to physical therapy before being approved for another medical treatment (e.g., surgery). In many cases, though, they make the decision to go on their own.
Physical therapy is often associated with some of the most dramatic events that can happen to you. For instance, if a person was shot, they might go to a physical therapist to learn how to walk again. A surgeon and a general practitioner will do their best to get a patient as healthy as possible, but they can’t take it to the next level during recovery the way a physical therapist in Haughton, LA can. Of course, this is a limited view on how physical therapy can help. It’s far more versatile when you take a closer look.
Even if you’re feeling great, a physical therapist can be a game-changer. This is because certain muscles can start to lose their strength without people realizing it. Only when they experience some type of physical trauma or illness does the weakness reveal itself. Sometimes, it only takes a few calculated exercises to protect some of your most vulnerable muscle groups. Whether you’re an athlete or not, seeing a physical therapist can help you stay limber and pain-free during all your daily activities. Their treatments can also improve your body’s ability to withstand unexpected strain on your muscles, such as in the case of a fall. You might be surprised at how simple it is to stave off injury.
Sports Medicine
Whether it’s golf, wrestling, or football, all athletes know they’re at risk of injury every time they put themselves out there. Physical therapists in Haughton, LA treat patients under numerous circumstances, including people with acute issues from specific incidents and those with chronic pain from countless repeated movements. People can sometimes associate this branch of physical therapy with the professionals who grace our screens at professional events, but the reality is that you can just as easily pull a muscle running for the bus as you can running for a touchdown.
Dislocated shoulders, shin splints, and sprained ankles are all in a day’s work for a sports physical therapist. What’s more, the right professional is well aware of how a program will affect your lifestyle. They realize how important sports are for your mental health as well as your physical well-being. When you’re out of commission, even if it’s just for a little while, it can have a pronounced effect on your outlook. Luckily, there are a number of methods at your disposal to treat sports injuries, so you can dig back in.
When implemented correctly with the right physical therapist, strength training, stretching, and endurance tests can all work wonders. Plus, we’re here for athletes who want to work on prevention exercises too. While there’s no preventing all injuries, you can reduce your odds by increasing your flexibility and resilience to impact. It’s not always easy, but seeing a physical therapist who specializes in sports medicine in Haughton, LA may be your best chance of staying in the game. Considering the amount of strain that even a few movements can put on your body, most athletes can’t afford not to take precautions.
Post-Surgical Physical Therapy
Major surgery might be common, but it’s also a major event for your body. When it’s over, it can leave patients feeling weaker than they realized. They may be in pain and they may have trouble moving. Post-surgery can be a vicious cycle. Because it hurts to move, patients avoid it. Then, their muscles start to atrophy, making it even more difficult to do anything on their own. This doesn’t just have an effect on the body, it can leave people feeling depressed. Post-surgical physical therapy in Haughton, LA can be the answer.
After surgery, physical therapists help patients reclaim their range of motion, which can both improve people’s pain levels and help them avoid more dangerous coping mechanisms (like opioids). A physical therapist in Haughton, LA is also trained to work with the person’s specific surgery. So, while there may be some common strength exercises that are common to nearly all post-surgical patients, you can expect to learn exercises and techniques that target the exact area that was treated. While it can be uncomfortable even when you’re with a physical therapist, they help you monitor each movement so you’re not inadvertently making your injury worse.
This will not only help the muscles, it will help your heart and lung capacity. Plus, all the exercises can improve your endorphins, which is a must after major surgery. Finally, physical therapy can help older patients retain their freedom, allowing them to perform daily activities like cleaning, cooking, showering, etc. Whether you’re trying to recover from back surgery, an ACL repair, a hip replacement, or a bypass procedure, there are few candidates who wouldn’t benefit from the exercises and strength training of physical therapy.
Vestibular Rehab
The vestibular system refers to a signaling system that tells your brain to stabilize your body. If you’ve ever stood up too fast and felt lightheaded for a second only to snap back to normal, it was your vestibular system that kicked into gear. When your system isn’t working, you’re more likely to get dizzy.
The fear of falling can cause people to avoid certain activities, which can end up having ripple effects on the rest of the body. Located in the inner ear, this complex system can be damaged due to ear infections, fluid buildup, neck traumas, or inflammation. Vestibular rehab in Haughton, LA ensures that you can reduce the uneasy or unbalanced feeling you get when you’re trying to move around.
A trained physical therapist can introduce exercises that will eventually begin to alleviate symptoms or eliminate them entirely. How your treatment plan is designed will depend on how your vestibular system was injured and what type of experiences you’ve had since the injury. For instance, if your symptoms are typically triggered by certain types of head movements, you can help your brain get used to them in a safe and controlled environment. If you’re experiencing double vision when you’re trying to focus, there are exercises that can help you strengthen your eye muscles.
Like all types of physical therapy offered in Haughton, LA, these programs can also help you improve your balance. In vestibular rehab, you might be asked to walk along an uneven surface as a way of improving your balance. Your therapist will work with you, monitoring your progress and adjusting the program as needed. It may only take a few weeks or less before you start to see noticeable improvement.
Dry Needling
Dry needling in Haughton, LA is a safe physical therapy technique that’s used to help treat musculoskeletal conditions with special tools. The word ‘dry’ refers to the type of needle being used. Because it doesn’t contain liquid of any kind (whether medicinal or otherwise), the practitioner relies on the needle to stimulate different trigger points to manage everything from pain to impairments.
This specialty of physical therapy is focused on the presence and effects of trigger points. Referring to the compromised bands of muscle fibers in an injured body, they are often the root cause of muscular conditions. The tighter these trigger points are and the more knotted the muscles, the more likely it is that you’ll experience pain or restricted movements.
A dry needle is designed to get deeper than even the deepest massage can go. The single-strand goes through the skin to break up some of the tightness below. As the fibers loosen, the blood can flow again. If you’re used to feeling pain in a certain point of your body on a regular basis, dry needling can help you reduce the discomfort so you can move more freely.
Dry needling can be performed nearly anywhere on your body, including shoulders, heels, hips, and back. For the vast majority of people, dry needling will be combined with other procedures to ensure you’re making progress. During the procedure, physical therapists will wear gloves or other types of personal protective equipment to ensure sterility.
The right physical therapist in Haughton, LA can work out the best plan for you. Your dry needling schedule will be customized based on your symptoms, medical history, and preferences. Dry needling can not only do wonders for your comfort, but it can also speed up your recovery timeline so you can get back to normal.
Subacute Injuries
When your body is injured for any reason, it triggers a complex chain of events to recover on its own. Called the subacute stage, it’s a truly incredible testament to the body’s resiliency to events of every variety. Joint fractures, amputations, heart attacks, spinal cord injuries, and even amputations can all be handled by a healthy body. However, this isn’t the entire story. There’s a short window here that is easy to miss. It’s a tentative period in time where one wrong move can derail the entire operation. Pushing the recovery when the body isn’t ready can damage the tissues even more than they were already damaged when they were first injured.
A physical therapist who specializes in subacute injuries in Haughton, LA understands the intricacies of how the body recovers. Subacute injuries can be severe, and some patients may only be able to handle a few minutes of exercise a day. Others will be pushed right up to the brink of their capacity as they try to get back to their everyday routine. Because trauma can affect people in different ways, it’s important to work with a professional who can give you the attention and the care needed to put it all behind you.
There are multiple moving parts with this type of physical therapy in Haughton, LA. Unlike standard physical therapy, which can treat a wide range of conditions, subacute has everything to do with how the body reacts to different types of pressure. It’s easy to rush the recovery and then end up being in a worse place than where you started. If you don’t want to end up in this situation, the right physical therapist can be a lifesaver.
Orthopedic Physical Therapy
Orthopedic physical therapy in Haughton, LA gives you access to trained practitioners who can help you regain your range of motion. Your physical therapist understands how the ligaments, tendons, bones, and muscles work together, and how different injuries and illnesses can affect them. They can also help you recover from orthopedic surgery as well, improving your range of motion session after session until you’ve recovered.
While all physical therapists know the basics of your musculoskeletal systems, an orthopedic physical therapist has had additional training to address anything from arthritis to knee disorders to back pain. They can even help you adjust to using a prosthetic limb. Tactics like strength training, mobilization, exercise, stimulation and hot/cold therapy can all make a difference if you’re experiencing an orthopedic issue in Haughton, LA. When you’re on your own, you can use many of these same techniques to manage pain and ensure that your condition is making sufficient headway.
Things like back, shoulder, and neck pain can be some of the more tricky types of problems to work with. If you want a physical therapist with more insight into the musculoskeletal quirks that come with these conditions, it’s important to choose someone who specializes in these areas. As you navigate from one stage to the next, you’ll be able to ask in-depth questions about any concerns you might have and receive equally in-depth answers.
