Why You Need An Annual Physical Therapy Check-Up
We have always been told to go see the dentist twice each year for a preventative check up on our oral care. We go get an annual physical exam from our primary care physician to assess our general systemic health. What we are currently lacking in today’s medical model is perhaps the most important preventative service of all. An annual physical therapy appointment to address our movement system; the body. The muscles and joints that we use daily are not getting a routine tune-up.
When you go to the physician for a “physical exam,” what do they do? Perhaps check your weight, blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and maybe an occasional blood test. All of that is great, and necessary. However, your primary care physician’s job is to make sure you stay alive. End of story. Their concern is that your systemic organs are functioning appropriately. What they do not address is your overall movement patterns. How much time do you spend with the physician during a visit? Five minutes? They don’t have time to watch you perform functional activities, assess your biomechanics, and determine if you are at risk for causing degenerative changes to your muscles, joints, ligaments, and tendons. I’m not discounting the importance of an annual physical exam. However, it is a more systemic overview of your health as opposed to an in depth evaluation of how your neuromuscular and musculoskeletal systems are performing. Your physical therapy appointment would address this.
How Physical Therapy Can Help
As a physical therapist, I see too many patients with chronic musculoskeletal conditions that could have easily been prevented if they had been addressed earlier in life. Muscles tighten, joints stiffen up, and the body compensates. Your body will naturally take the path of least resistance. If you have a joint that is not moving correctly, your body will compensate by increasing joint motion at another joint, which can easily cause a host of problems down the road such as degenerative joint disease, osteoarthritis, tendinopathies, etc.
I think one major barrier for people is the misconception that they need a referral from a physician for physical therapy. Your physical therapist has a clinical doctorate degree. Most states have granted physical therapists “direct access,” meaning that you can go directly to physical therapy for an evaluation without a referral.
If we were to create a healthcare model in which people were annually screened by a physical therapist for movement dysfunctions, we could significantly reduce the prevalence of degenerative musculoskeletal conditions. Even if you don’t have pain, you should be seeing a physical therapist as a preventative service. Prehabilitation is just as important as rehabilitation.
A dysfunction is defined as “a state of altered mechanics, either an increase or decrease from the expected normal, or the presence of aberrant motion” (Paris). Your physical therapist has a clinical doctorate in identifying and correcting movement dysfunctions. He/she is the person you should be seeing annually to identify if you are putting yourself at risk for injury.
Physical Therapy For Injury Prevention
In the past several years, there has been a major trend toward preventative healthcare. There is a reason that professional sports teams do movement screens on their prospective players. Professional teams do not want to invest in players that are classified as “at risk for injury.” Why are we not performing injury risk assessments for all of our youth sports athletes? We need to be. As a parent, you should consider bringing your kid into a local physical therapist for a pre-season injury prevention screen.
Why are over 700,000 total knee replacements performed each year in the U.S.? Is it because knees are meant to wear out? I have a hard time believing that. Instead, it’s because patients are not being seen by a healthcare practitioner who takes the time to assess patients’ overall movement patterns and biomechanics.
The body is meant to move. Your muscles and joints provide mobility. There’s a reason that physicians, physical therapists, chiropractors, and most other healthcare practitioners all agree that exercise is a good thing. However, in a state of dysfunction and impaired motor patterns, exercising may be adding insult to injury by causing pain and increased tissue stress on certain joints. Getting an annual “tune-up” from your physical therapist can not only decrease your pain, but also correct these issues before they lead to degenerative changes.
Now What?
With the way that healthcare and insurance are going, it’s not far-fetched to think that we are transitioning to a more preventative health and wellness model. Within this model, annual physical therapy visits are crucial. We go to the dentist to have our teeth checked twice per year. It’s time that we stop neglecting the rest of our body. Go make a physical therapy appointment with your local physical therapist to assess your functional biomechanics and correct any underlying dysfunctions. This will help improve your overall health and mobility as well as decrease your chance of developing degenerative conditions down the road. For more information on why you need to see a physical therapist.
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References:
1: Stanley Paris. Phys Ther, 49:8 Aug 1979.