The physical therapist excellence at Community Health and Dental Care, Pottstown, recently celebrated the discharge of a local student. She was generally relieved to be feeling well. But more than that, she was thrilled with the timing of her discharge, just prior to a once-in-a-lifetime chance to study abroad in France.

The success of this individual case can beg the question: What, exactly, does a physical therapist do?

A Profound Effect

Community Health and Dental Care’s team of physical therapists can have a profound effect on people’s lives. They help people achieve fitness goals, regain or maintain their independence, and lead active lives.

Physical therapists are movement experts who improve quality of life through prescribed exercise, hands-on care, and patient education.

These healthcare professionals diagnose and treat individuals of all ages, from children to people at the end of life, guiding them through injuries, disabilities, or other health conditions.

Physical therapists examine each person and then develop a treatment plan to improve his or her ability to move, reduce or manage pain, restore function, and prevent disability.

Stronger Bodies, Less Pain

Physical therapy is the art of healing through movement, manual and hands-on interventions, cutting-edge medical devices, and therapeutic exercise.

A practitioner can be a Doctor of Physical Therapy or a Doctor of Physiotherapy (both known as DPTs), academic designations obtained after a graduate-level first degree.

Common Interventions

Their common patient interventions generally fall into common therapies:

• Therapeutic exercise individually prescribed to address your functional impairments/medical condition
• Manual therapy to facilitate movement, to decrease pain, and to maximize recovery
• Modalities, such as electrical stimulation, to accelerate healing, to decrease pain without medicines where possible, and to retrain movement patterns
• Education on specific medical conditions and proper ways to manage disability during rehabilitation

Their caseload can comprise patients seeking assistance with:

• Pre/postoperative regimens
• Sports medicine
• Balance disorders
• Running ailments
• Prosthetic training and education
• Pre/postpartum education and rehabilitation
• Temporal Mandibular Dysfunction (disorders of the jawbone)

In treating these conditions, DPTs guide:

• Therapeutic exercises individually prescribed to address specific functional impairments and medical conditions
• Manual therapy to facilitate movement, decrease pain, and maximize recovery
• Modalities (such as electrical stimulation) to accelerate healing, to decrease pain without medicines where possible, and to retrain movement patterns
• Education on medical condition and proper ways to manage disabilities during rehabilitation

More information on physical therapy — that gets patients feeling très bien for trips abroad or any other purpose — is online at Community Health and Dental Care.