What to Expect at Physical Therapy: The Key to Setting Healthy Expectations
Insights Into Goal Setting and Achieving in PT
Physical therapy is often shrouded in mystery. You’ll have questions about the experience, and possibly be questioning the existing norms and common practices – especially if your experience to date has left you less than satisfied.
At Reload, we understand how crucial it is that you set off on the right foot, and set and manage healthy expectations for physical therapy outcomes. When breaking down traditional expectations, we take a highly personalized approach to your therapeutic journey.
In this article, Dr. Marc Jacobchick, a Physical Therapist at Reload, helps to demystify our process. He reveals how you, the client, are front and center in all we do as we motivate you to take ownership of your therapy and participate actively in your healing process.
What to Expect from Physical Therapy In a Traditional Setting
At the heart of traditional physical therapy lies the model of a typical session of 10 to 15 minutes. You’ll receive focused attention from a professional, including manual therapy and pertinent education. This is followed by self-supervised or supervised exercises.
“Before becoming a physical therapist, I had a lot of experience in the traditional setting as a rehab technician. It doesn’t require a degree or any certification. Tasks included fetching hot packs, ice packs, setting up stim machines, and occasionally demonstrating exercises,” says Marc. “Yet, the level of expertise isn’t anywhere near comparable to certified trainers or licensed physical therapists.”
Herein lies an interesting pattern about people’s expectations in physical therapy. The anticipation is that you visit the physical therapist, and they work their magic through passive modalities like stretching, massage, joint mobilization, manual techniques, and interventions performed on you. Problem solved!
But it doesn’t work like this. For real results, we need a paradigm shift to challenge the expectations of traditional therapy.
Creating Healthy Expectations: Physical Therapy with Reload
One of the problems with traditional physical therapy is that you are rarely pushed beyond your comfort zone.
At Reload we do things very differently.
Instead of a quick session in which you are focused on passive modalities, you can expect a full hour of one-on-one attention.
“Our ethos is about empowering you through active modalities,” Marc explains. “Mainly exercise, tailored to your unique situation and goals. We’ll challenge your original expectation to have the physical therapist “fix” you. We’ll guide and help solve the problem with you and help you implement the plan. This leads to a more sustainable solution.”
Our expertise lies in learning to understand you, and then delivering a personalized exercise program and insightful coaching designed to achieve desired outcomes.
This new perspective is a tantalizing twist on those traditional expectations. Instead of relying on being fixed, the Reload way is to equip you to be your own healer, helping you to live your life without limitations.
The Importance of the Personalized Approach
The internet is a wonderful thing. Without it, you wouldn’t be reading about Reload now! However, it can also be very dangerous and provide poor diagnoses and expectations, as Marc describes:
“Often, people come in and say, ‘I looked this up online. I looked this up on Google. And it says that it should take me four weeks to get over this injury, whatever it is, right?’”
The answer is never this clear cut. As Marc says:
“It depends on so many different factors like the age of the client, their fitness level, their sleep quality, how well they’re eating, and how much hydration they’re getting throughout the day.
“So, what I try to do is to paint a picture for the client. Because I’d be a fool to answer that question. I’d be giving an expectation of a deadline that I can’t be sure we can meet.”
We never offer generic deadlines. What we do is control your specific variables. Where we think those variables are most important, we place more focus. This could be sleeping more, eating healthier, or even managing your work/life stress levels. It’s this personalized route that delivers healthier expectations for physical therapy.
Motivating Clients to Take Ownership of Physical Therapy – What to expect
Your physical therapy journey is a delicate ride. Managing variables like diet and sleep has a profound effect on your general health and your ability to recover from injury. If we measure, monitor, and manage these things well, the likelihood is that you’ll experience less pain and accelerate your recovery.
You must put in the work to earn the right to feel less pain or to promote recovery from injury. Otherwise, it’s like running a marathon with no training.
This approach sets the tone for what to expect at a physical therapy appointment. It also motivates you to be active in your own healing and physical health.
To wrap up, physical therapy is not quick-cure-all. It’s a journey that requires active participation, understanding, and setting and managing healthy expectations. We may personalize all we do for you, but this is because it is you that holds the key to your recovery.
Are you motivated to succeed with physical therapy?
Book an appointment with us to start with a comprehensive 90-minute body evaluation.
