What is Rehabilitation?
Rehabilitation can be defined as the action of restoring health or normal activities through a modality of training/therapy following an event that causes distress to the body or mind.
This can include a wide range of things such as injuries in a work or sporting environment, post-surgery rehabilitation for example heart or joint replacement, neurological injuries such as stroke and traumatic brain injuries, or even chronic conditions such as Parkinson’s or diabetes.
Benefits of Exercise in the Rehabilitation Journey
The benefits of exercise modality treatments in the rehabilitation journey include promoting strength, balance, cardiovascular health, flexibility, and improved mental health. Exercise can also focus on building stability, control, reduce pain and decrease chances of reinjury.
Rehabilitation Journey
- Injury or Cause for rehabilitation (typically get a scan / diagnosis from GP or Physio)
- Acute treatment through muscle manipulation, massage, or release techniques
- Reactive and reload muscles and joints affected by injury – building strength and stability.
- Return to most daily activities/life/work/sport. Moderations can be made suited to each person and the extent of diagnosis undergoing rehabilitation.
- Continue to maintain preventative training to decrease likely hood of reinjury and promote an independent approach to continued management.
How can an Exercise Physiologist Help with Rehabilitation
During the rehabilitation process, an exercise physiologist can help in many ways. In the initial phases of rehabilitation, exercises focusing on release and mobility are implemented to get you moving again. Typically post injury/diagnosis, the body tends to stiffen and tighten up areas around the injury site to prevent any further damage.
Through the use of correct stretching exercises, we would then be able to implement reactivation exercises. These typically include a series of isometric holds, body weight exercises and stability/balance which will help in the reintroduction of exercise and load to the body.
These exercises then lead us to our reload phase, in which we start loading the muscles again, build strength and protect the joints/muscles. In most cases, people are able to return to most activities of daily living by this stage.
The rehabilitation process doesn’t end there however, as it is so important to continue training and building a strong foundation to assist in the prevention of further injury.
Goals that an Exercise Physiologist will help you achieve
- Return you back to day-to-day life, whether that is a return to work or sport, and back to daily activities.
- Maintain and prevent injury from reoccurring, which can be done through a self-managed exercise program or through continued support and sessions with an exercise physiologist.
- Education on how exercise post injury is important, how to move your body in ways to help prevent reinjury and strategies/tools for self-management which allows for more independent control over your own recovery/rehabilitation.
Exercise Physiology services can be beneficial for anyone undergoing some form of rehabilitation, whether they are coming of a sporting injury or even a knee replacement. We can assist in the development of an exercise program suited to get you moving, build your strength and then promote self-management and independence through the continuation of your rehabilitation journey.
Written By: Super Clinic Exercise Physiologist, Tia Jupp.