Online Physiotherapy
How Does Online Physio Work?
When most people think physiotherapy, they think in the clinic, hands-on. Over the years however, physios have realised that the biggest impact to your recovery is not what we do in the clinic, but what you do the other 6 days and 23 hours of the week. This means, the most important things that need to come out your appointment are;
an accurate diagnosis of your injury and it’s root cause,
understanding why it’s occurred and the changes you need to make, and
some tools, stretches and exercises that you can do to enhance your injury recovery until we see you again.
This is why online physio is absolutely an option and can be very effective for all kinds of injury treatment including acute back pain, sports injuries and chronic pain. Our unique treatment model enables us to understand not just your pain, but the root cause of your problem. You will make a much greater difference to your muscle tightness, muscle strength and pain by doing the right exercises to treat the root cause of your problem during and between sessions than hands-on treatment at the site of pain can ever make.
What if I have tight muscles or stiff joints, Won’t Hands-On Treatment Help?
Don’t get us wrong, there is definitely a place for hands-on treatment. For the most part it feels nice, therapeutic touch can be powerful and it can definitely help to ease pain in the short-term. That said, it is in no way essential to your injury recovery and will rarely heal your pain without other treatment. Our body was designed to move so moving well is always the key to quick injury recovery. Hands-on treatment can help release tension that builds up from poor movement patterns but by itself, muscle release will never make you move better, which means that pain will come back as soon as you go back to what you were doing.
On the other hand, when we start by turning on the right muscles and training better movement, the overworked tight muscles loosen off by themselves (it’s called reciprocal inhibition). In this way we can both release muscles and activate better movement patterns at the same time, which is the key to preventing you pain from coming back when you start moving again.
Why would I do online physio instead of seeing My local Physio?
Our unique treatment method and understanding of the body means we get referred lots of patients with long-term pain who haven’t made progress with other treatments available local to them. As a result, we do online treatments with people from all over Australia and might have anywhere up to 80% of our caseload online in any given week. This means we are very experienced at online treatment and are confident that we can accurately diagnose your injury just by watching you move. Then we guide your through appropriate stretches and exercises to release and activate different muscles. You feel better by the end of the session, have a plan and exercises. to complete until our next session, and the best part is you can reproduce it all again at any time if your pain comes back.
Is there anything you can’t treat online?
If you have suffered an acute injury from a fall, crash or sporting incident, you will probably need a hands-on assessment to determine the extent of tissue injury so online treatment is not preferable in this situation. Once you have had it assessed and are ready to start rehabilitation (which can be any time from 3 days post-injury), online physiotherapy is definitely an option to guide you through your recovery.
If you have extensive scarring from previous injuries that are contributing to your problem, hands-on treatment would likely be more appropriate than online treatment. That said, if you aren’t making progress with your current treatment an online appointment will still be beneficial so that the true root cause of your pain can be identified (if you aren’t making progress with current treatment the root cause definitely hasn’t been identified).
What to expect in online physio Treatment
Initial consultation
Initial discussion to understand your injury and its impact, your history, lifestyle and goals.
Movement-based assessment: we instruct you to move in different way while we watch how your body does them naturally (e.g. stand on one leg, sit in a chair, turn to the side etc). From this we diagnose the injury and its root cause.
Discussion to understand the reason for the movement problem (e.g. habit, belief, training program etc).
Guided stretches and rehabilitation exercises to immediately improve your pain and to create your initial home exercise program.
Advise you of changes to make in your day-to-day life, posture, training etc to quickly decrease your pain.
Email summary of the session, changes to make and exercises to complete.
60 mins in length.
Follow-up consultations
Initial discussion to understand your progress since our last appointment
Movement re-assessment to determine biomechanical changes that have occurred.
Discussion and advice regarding additional activities/sports you can safely begin.
Guided stretches and rehabilitation exercises for immediate pain relief and for you to complete until your next session.
Email summary of the session, changes to make and exercises to complete.
30, 45 or 60 mins in length as determined by prior discussion between you and your physiotherapist.
What do i need For An Online Treatment Session?
A small amount of preparation can make a big difference to how well the online consultation flows. Some things to consider and prepare are:
You will need good internet access and a device through which we can do the session (laptops and tablets are ideal though phones can work too).
Please wear shorts that you can move easily in, and if you are comfortable, we will ask you to take off your shirt (undergarments are fine though).
Approximately 2mx2m of cleared space in front of the camera makes it easier for us to do all the movement we will need to during the session (at times, you may be standing a couple of metres away from the camera so that we can see your whole body as you move).
It is useful to have some handy household objects nearby so that we can use them during your session (e.g. chair, broom, cushion and towel).
If you have any home exercise equipment such as weights, resistance bands, yoga mats, please have them nearby so that we can use them for your rehab.
If pain and injury is stopping you from doing the things you love, book in for an appointment with one of our expert physiotherapists.
Or, if you’re still not sure, book in for a free 15-minute online consult so we can discuss your injury and how our unique treatment model can help you.