How Can a Physical Therapist Help?
Your physical therapist’s overall purpose is to help you continue to participate in your daily activities and life roles. Your PT will design a treatment program based on both the findings of the evaluation and your personal goals. The treatment program likely will be a combination of exercises.
Your physical therapist will design a specialized treatment program to meet your unique needs and goals. Your program may include:
- Gentle Movement. Your physical therapist may teach you specific movements to help take pressure off the nerve root, which can help alleviate pain.
- Stretching and Range-of-Motion Exercises. You may learn specific exercises to improve mobility in the joints and muscles of your spine and your extremities. Improving motion in a joint is often the key to pain relief.
- Strengthening Exercises. Strong trunk (abdomen and back) muscles provide support for your spinal joints, and strong arm and leg muscles help take some of the workload off your spinal joints.
- Aerobic Exercise. You may learn aerobic exercise movements to increase your tolerance for activities that might have been affected by the spinal stenosis, such as walking.
This might sound like a lot of exercise, but don’t worry: research shows that the more exercise you can handle, the quicker you’ll get rid of your pain and other symptoms! Your physical therapist may decide to use a combination of other treatments as well, including:
- Manual Therapy. Your physical therapist may conduct manual (hands-on) therapy such as massage to improve the mobility of stiff joints that may be contributing to your symptoms.
- Use of Equipment. Your physical therapist may prescribe the use of rehabilitation equipment—such as a special harness device that attaches to a treadmill to help reduce pressure on the spinal nerves during walking.
- Postural Education. You may learn to relieve pressure on the nerves by making simple changes in how you stand, walk, and sit.
If you think that you may need physical therapy to address your spinal stenosis contact the PT’s at Buffalo Back and Neck Physical Therapy. We are the area’s leading experts in the treatment of back and neck pain.
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