Whether you’re experiencing a sports injury, a workplace injury, or even an injury from a car accident, your main goals are likely to reduce pain and restore your range of motion. That’s because injuries, regardless of how you sustained them, often cause discomfort as well as reduced functionality. Manual therapy, a type of physical therapy, can help you achieve both of these goals.
Dr. Dustin Hamoy and our skilled team of practitioners at Precision Laser Joint and Spine Pain Center in Glen Burnie, Maryland, offer physical therapy (including manual therapy) to relieve pain, improve range of motion, mobilize joints, and reduce swelling.
Below, Dr. Hamoy discusses what manual therapy is as well as what injuries can be treated with this therapy.
Manual therapy — sometimes called hands-on physical therapy — is a type of therapy that doesn’t rely on machines. As the name suggests, Dr. Hamoy uses his hands (rather than devices or machines) to perform specific hands-on techniques. Two types of manual therapy include:
Soft tissue mobilization is a form of manual therapy, which can include applying gentle pressure to soft tissues (such as your muscles). Hands-on techniques and the application of manual pressure can:
Applying pressure is just one technique of soft tissue mobilization. Other manual therapy techniques include friction massage, perpendicular mobilization, and parallel mobilization. Regardless of which hands-on techniques are used, Dr. Hamoy pushes, pulls, and kneads your soft tissues (i.e., your muscles, ligaments, tendons, and nerves) in specific ways to help improve functionality and reduce pain.
On the other hand, joint mobilization is a form of manual therapy that addresses joint pain and dysfunction. As a result, this form of manual therapy may be better-suited to injuries of the joints or skeletal system.
Now that we’ve explored what manual therapy is and what techniques fall under the umbrella of manual therapy, what type of injuries respond to this type of therapy?
Manual therapy can be an effective treatment for an array of injuries, including:
Though manual therapy can be used to treat dozens of injuries, Dr. Hamoy will select specific techniques to address your specific type of injury. Rest assured that when you come to Precision Laser Joint and Spine Pain Center, we can help you throughout your rehabilitation journey. Manual therapy doesn’t just focus on pain relief; we want to help improve your functionality, too!
Whether you’re dealing with a sprain or a fracture or another type of injury, manual therapy provides many benefits to your body. Specifically, manual therapy can help you recover by:
Manual therapy can also lower your stress, especially as you start to see progress with your injury. As you develop more strength and flexibility, you’ll start to feel stronger.
If an injury is holding you back, or if you’d like to learn more about manual therapy, please call 410-324-2968 to schedule your appointment. You can also visit our website to book online.
