Some Common PT Myths
If you’ve been to physical therapy, you probably have a pretty good idea of the types of services and advice available to customers and clients. However, if you’ve never been before, there’s a chance you might not fully understand what physical therapy is and what physical therapists do. Below are some of the most common misconceptions about what we do at In Motion O.C.
Myth: You Need a Referral From a Doctor
While you may need a doctor’s referral for things like prescription medications, you do not need a referral to see a physical therapist. A survey done by the APTA concluded that this misconception was held by 70 percent of health care consumers, but the days when doctors were gatekeepers to all other forms of health care are long gone.
Myth: Physical Therapy Is Painful
Even if there is pain in the process of healing, PTs try their best to minimize patients’ pain as much as they can. If you need physical therapy, there’s no reason to wait until the pain subsides before coming in for a session. PTs can work within the bounds of your pain threshold to help you heal quicker.
Myth: You Need to be Injured to Go to Physical Therapy
While helping people heal from injuries is part of what we do, it is not the entire scope of what we offer. Our PTs are also trained to help relieve things like chronic pain, headaches, and balance issues. They are also trained to examine and analyze patients’ movement and functions to fix problems with posture and help optimize their performance in different activities.
Myth: Surgery and Medication Work Better
There are actually a number of injuries and conditions that can be healed just as effectively through physical therapy as they can through surgery and medication, such as rotator cuff tears, knee injuries, or degenerative disc disease, to name a few.
We hope that if you’ve been to our clinic, you’ve had some of your previous misconceptions about physical therapy cleared up. We also hope that you can encourage any friends or family who need physical therapy but won’t go because of a misconception to stop by our offices or give us a call.
