Advanced treatment techniques using a personalized, multimodal approach to your care.
At First Physio, we categorize our treatments into three comprehensive pillars: Protective, Restorative, and Locomotive therapy. This holistic approach ensures we address every aspect of your recovery.
Protecting your body while promoting healing and preventing further injury
Increase tissue extensibility, blood flow and decrease stiffness.
This is a form of superficial heat that is used to increase circulation. It is recommended for reducing pain, increasing tissue elasticity and promoting healing of injured tissue. The most common application of superficial heat is by hydrocollator packs. Application of heat is a simple and effective way to reduce muscle spasms and help increase flexibility of tight muscles that are a result of injury. An increase in circulation transports physiologic healing factors to injured tissues, decreases fluid build-up in tissues following injury, and is also useful in preparing muscles and joints for stretches and exercises.
Decrease inflammation and pain post exercise/therapy.
Cold therapy has a number of benefits and effects. The main use purpose of cold therapy is to decrease circulation to a specific area. A decrease in circulation can help decrease inflammation and superficial tissue bleeding. This results in a decrease in pain. Cold therapy can be used with muscle strains, ligament sprains, and post injury or surgery for pain relief.
Modifying the workstation and office layout to prevent repetitive strain injuries.
At work, we often ask our bodies to assume unnatural, sustained postures or perform repetitive movements that lead to musculoskeletal disorders. For example, people who work with computers can experience back pain, wrist pain, and headaches because of their posture and the positioning of their computer equipment. These disorders can cause disabling pain, lost time from work, and interference with other daily activities.
Prevention is better than cure.
Knowing is half the battle, which is why FIRST PHYSIO professional physiotherapists also promote advice and education services for disease and injury prevention. Our staff will educate you so that you know what is best for your body to speed up recovery.
Physiotherapy is not limited to rehabilitation of injury and the effects of disease or disability. Our therapist will spend the time to prescribe the required exercises and activity modification to enhance your treatment and speed up your recovery. We offer additional material on optimal lifestyle practices and current research outcomes to get you back in the game. No question will go unanswered and we will support you through the healing process to its conclusion.
We assess to realign your bones.
Sometimes positions we adopt whether at work, sport or home can place undue stress on structures in our body resulting in poor posture. Poor prolonged posture will also result in weakening of postural muscles making it increasingly difficult to attain better posture. Muscle tightness, resulting from prolonged postures can lead to changes in pressure distribution over joint surfaces which may lead to degeneration.
This poor posture has profound effects on your body's ability to function efficiently. It can lead to numerous aches and pains such as back pain, neck pain and headaches. It can also be a common contributor to overuse or RSI injuries.
By seeking the advice and treatment of our physiotherapists in the management of postural conditions, patients can experience significant improvements in their pain and functional capacity and prevent recurrence of the problem.
Restoring function, reducing pain, and accelerating healing
Loosen muscle-related trigger points or tight myofascial/connective tissue that can cause headache.
It's a type of massage modality that helps relieve pain, reduce stress, and work on a specific problem—such as a frozen shoulder. Deep tissue massage can break up and eliminate scar tissue from previous injuries. A common problem is that stressed muscles can block nutrients and oxygen from getting to where they need to go, and this will cause inflammation that allows toxins to build up in your muscle tissue. The inflammation and toxins contribute to pain and stress.
Maximise lung function and capacity for efficient breathing via researched lung techniques.
Chest Physio is focussed on enabling those who suffer from chronic respiratory problems to manage their condition and the resulting symptoms in order to maximise function. Conditions such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Chronic asthma, Emphysema, Cystic Fibrosis and Bronchitis can leave an individual struggling to manage the symptoms and lead an active lifestyle.
Utilising the most to date treatment methods, our physiotherapists can introduce programmes to assist with symptom management such as breathlessness and sputum clearance, whilst introducing techniques to help individuals maximise function. Where appropriate these may include specific exercise programmes to improve physical conditioning with the aim of increasing participation in activities of daily living.
Stimulate cell activity, blood flow for accelerated healing.
Ultrasound is another form of heat and is a modality that can be used to help you with pain and promote tissue healing. Ultrasound uses sound waves to generate heat within a body part, which increases overall circulation to the targeted tissues. Increased circulation promotes tissue healing, prepares muscles and tissues for activity, and may also decrease inflammation.
Method to apply topical medications through the skin to treat soft tissue injuries and inflammatory conditions.
Phonophoresis is a topical modality that is combined with Ultrasound. An anti-inflammatory medication is mixed with the ultrasound gel. The sound waves from the ultrasound head push the medication through the skin and into inflamed tissues.
Stimulating your muscles at different intensities of electrical current.
Neuromuscular Electrical stimulation (NMES) uses an electrical current to cause a single muscle or a group of muscles to contract. Contracting the muscle via electrical stimulation helps recruit more muscle fibers to increase strength production within a muscle. Contraction of muscle also promotes blood supply to the area which assists in healing. Electrical stimulation may also be used to decrease muscle spasms, reduce/prevent atrophy, and decrease pain stimuli. Forms of electrical stimulation used for pain relief include: Interferential Current, Pre-Mod, and Hi-Volt, Russian current, TENS etc.
Our exciting unique new way of treating nerve and muscle pain.
Frequency Specific Microcurrent is becoming a more popular and progressive physiotherapy technique used for treatment. As the name suggest, a very low voltage micro amperage current is passed into the affected cells or tissue stress points in order to stimulate the bodys healing process. This sub sensory level of electrical stimulation has been used in treatment over the last 30 years for decreasing inflammation and reaching restricted tissues of the body.
Increase and maintain joint mobility.
Joint mobilization is a manual therapeutic treatment technique used to manage musculoskeletal dysfunction. It promotes movement in stagnant tissues and joints by oscillating or providing a traction force to the joint in specific directions, to increase joint mobility. Specific joint mobilizations can target joints with decreased mobility due to mechanical dysfunction, prolonged immobilization following injury and/or surgery. This increased joint mobility helps to promote normal range of motion and return to function.
Pain relief, increase range of motion, decrease inflammation.
Manual therapy basically means 'hands-on' physiotherapy treatment and as a term can be used to describe a broad range of treatments including but not limited to joint manipulation, joint mobilization, soft tissue massage, and muscle energy techniques. Using a hands-on technique, we can help reduce tightness, improve movement in joints, reduce pain, and improve function.
The human body is an amazingly adaptable piece of machinery. Restriction of movement in one region of the body, e.g. due to joint stiffness or soft tissue tightness, can often be compensated for by the development of extra (but excessive) movement in an adjacent region. Unfortunately this excessive movement often leads to overstrain / overload of tissues and pain.
Manual therapy techniques can 'free up' these restrictions, thereby lessening the body's need to use these harmful compensatory movements as a body region can move as it was originally intended to.
Therapeutic technique that is used by our therapists to improve balance, coordination, posture.
Neuromuscular re-education is one method used by therapists to facilitate the return of normal movement in persons with neuromuscular impairments. Therapists will examine your posture, balance and movement, as well as flexibility and muscle strength. They will record these findings, using them as benchmarks to track progress. Your neuromuscular re-education program will consist of repetitive movements, posturing, and stimulation designed to reinforce nerve signals for improving and regaining the functional movements.
Better posture allows better movement and prevents injury.
90% of the patients with musculoskeletal pain problems present with less – then – ideal- posture or imbalance in the body. Some muscles are overworking and others are not doing their job. This creates stress in the joints and overtime leads to pain.
Therapists educate patients about the importance of improving posture and body mechanics with daily activities. Stretching and strengthening does not permanently alter posture. You can temporarily force yourself into good posture but it is impossible to sustain this. To correct alignment, the body needs gentle repatterning with specific positions and movements. This will reset the body and create a permanent change. When you guide the body to optimal lignment, function will be restored and most often pain abolished.
Soft tissue treatment technique that treats problems with muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, and nerves.
Soft Tissue Release, or Myofascial Release, is therapy for the treatment of skeletal muscle immobility and pain. Soft Tissue Release relaxes contracted muscles, improves blood and lymphatic circulation, and stimulates stretch reflex in muscles.
Soft tissue management system is based on scientific evidence that muscles, nerves, blood vessels, and connective tissue develop adhesions within and between them as a result of various injuries that include: acute (sudden injury), cumulative (chronic injury), and pressure (due to poor posture). These adhesions cause the motion of muscles or joints to be altered, resulting in a wide variety of symptoms including pain, weakness, reduced range of motion, numbness, and tingling.
To restore joint range of motion, lengthen soft tissues gently.
Mechanical support to facilitate correct movement pattern.
Two types of taping techniques often utilized in our clinic, are Kinesio and McConnell Taping. Kinesio taping provides assistance and support to your musculature surrounding affected joints to decrease pain, overuse, and inflammation, as well as increase your postural awareness. Kinesiotaping is light weight and allows your affected extremity to continue to move freely within its normal range of motion with decreased pain. McConnell Taping is one of the most common taping techniques for the treatment of patellofemoral pain. The primary goal of this taping technique is to reposition your patella and reduce pain by allowing normal gliding of the patella during knee movements.
Restoring movement, building strength, and getting you back to life
Balance is crucial in movement for effective motion.
Proprioceptive and balance exercises teach your body to control the position of a deficient or an injured joint. The unpredictable movements of the balance board re-educates your body to quickly react to the wobbly movements without having to think about these movements.
That is, your natural balance and proprioceptive reactions that we are attempting to retrain make the transition from a conscious to a subconscious state. A quality subconscious proprioception and balance system is important in everyday life and particularly in sport.
Proprioception exercises are designed to improve your proprioception feedback circle. In simple terms, your brain sends electrical contract or relax messages to your muscles. Your joint movement response is detected by your sensory nervous system and reported back to your brain for fine tuning and improvement with repetition of the process.
Helping individuals resume normal walking following injury, illness or surgery.
A process in which someone is trained or relearned how to walk. It may be used to help someone learn to walk again after an injury or to assist a person with disabilities who has not learned to walk safely and comfortably. You'll get the support and assistance you need during your gait program from our caring professionals. By coming to our facility, you get access to the most innovative techniques and equipment in walking therapy. If you have been injured in a traumatic event or coping with a physical ailment, we will provide you with the best care to help you with your mobility.
Combining strength, stamina, stability and sensory training for overall movement therapy.
Exercise therapy is a regimen or plan of physical activities designed and prescribed for specific therapeutic goals. Its purpose is to restore normal musculoskeletal function or to reduce pain caused by diseases or injuries.
Exercise training or therapy can take many different forms. For some people it may be moving more and sitting less, and for others it may mean getting on a bike, jogging or lifting weights. Each injury or movement dysfunction is different. This means that every individual being prescribed exercise will have an exercise program specific to that individual. The ultimate goal is to use specialized physical activity to improve health, function and overall well-being.
Strength protects injured parts, as well as prevents overall injury.
PRE is a form of exercise in which the goal is to increase the strength of weak or injured muscle or muscle group by gradually increasing the resistance. Decreased strength can lead to poor functional movement execution and eventually lead to injury. Resistance bands, free weights, weight machines, and body weight are various ways used to provide resistance.
Improve muscle and soft tissue extensibility, prevents swelling and pain.
Exercise designed to lengthen a muscle(s) or soft tissue. Stretching exercises are usually prescribed to improve the flexibility of muscles that have tightened due to disuse or in compensation to pain, spasm or immobilization. Stretching exercises also help to prevent musculo-tendinous injuries while at the same time promoting psychological and physical well-being. Athletes, housewives, the elderly and those suffering from joint limitations such as arthritis, can also benefit from stretching.
Stretching hold many benefits for individuals in rehabilitation, as well as individuals who are only interested in improving overall health and well-being. Physiotherapy can help by providing the tools for individuals to reap the greatest benefits from this activity.
Improves joint range of motion for normal movements.
Following injury or surgery to a specific area, your ability to move an extremity/extremities may be decreased. Depending on your needs assessed by your Physical Therapist Passive Range of Motion (PROM), Active Assistive Range of Motion (AAROM), and/or Active Range of Motion (AROM) techniques will be implemented into your treatment program. Passive Range of Motion is performed by your Physical Therapist without any assistance or effort from you. Active Assistive Range of Motion requires some effort from you to move the affected extremity through the available range of motion either with the assistance of your Physical Therapist or with exercise equipment. Active Range of Motion is performed independently by you, without any external assistance, in which an extremity is moved through the available range.
Helps to relax the tighten muscles to maintain the length of the muscles.
Myotherapy involves the use of hands on manual techniques and massage to release muscle tension and trigger points associated with aches and pains. Myotherapy aims to return you to a healthy painfree state.
Remember that tight muscles will eventually cause you pain – the fact they are tight means they are likely to be over loaded. This leads to micro trauma, release of pain mediating chemicals and the formation of painful trigger points and bands in the muscle. The myotherapy techniques improve blood flow to the local muscle and this allows three major things which lead to reduced pain.
Who will benefit from Myotherapy?
A very wide variety of muscle problems will benefit from Myotherapy. It is best to discuss this directly with one of our trained therapists to determine whether it is suitable for you. Some of the many conditions it has shown great benefit for include:
Based on cause and effect relationship between pain behavior and repeated movements. Emphasizes patient education and self-treatment.
Continuous evaluation and assessment of applied hands-on techniques and movements to identify problem areas and direct treatment.
Manual therapy approach applying manual pressure to a stiff area while the patient is stretching. Restores motion and alleviates pain.
Core strengthening for trunk and hip muscles that provide a bracing effect to the spine, reducing stress and pain.
Our expert physiotherapist will create a personalized treatment plan just for you.
Call us at 8870140001 to book your appointment.