Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation is the process to regain full function following injury and involves restoring strength, flexibility, endurance and power. It is achieved through various exercises and drills. Rehabilitation is as important as treatment following an injury but unfortunately is often overlooked.

It is important to understand that everyone is different and will respond to different exercises and treatment regimens at different rates.

Rehabilitation exercises should begin as soon as possible after the initial inflammatory phase (72 hours) and should ‘usually’ be done being pain free with a few rare exceptions. Be careful with the phrase “no pain, no gain” as in most cases this is not the case. Pain is the body’s response telling you to stop or slow down and if ignored, healing will be impaired.

There are 3 Phases patients typically go thru.

Rehabilitation Involves gentle exercise allowing for the damaged tissue to heal. This stage is often rushed and will result in poor quality healing and will be prone to re-injury.

Rehabilitation involves progressively loading the muscles/tendons/bones or ligaments to develop tensile strength producing a healed tissue that will be able to withstand the stresses and strains of everyday life and exercise.

the final stage of rehabilitation is where the tissue adapts and is stressed using functional exercises and drills to ensure the body is ready to return to normal activities of daily living.