Modalities In Physical Therapy

The Modalities of Physical Therapy

Many people have heard of physical therapists and have a basic understanding of the various methods which the therapist use. They know the therapist will perform stretches with the patient and maybe use another machine to help the rehabilitation process, but do they completely understand the means the physical therapists use? The answer is no. The purpose of this essay is to explain the different modalities physical therapists use to help patients recover from their injuries. Some of the modalities include traction devices, ultrasound, and electrical stimulating treatments.

The various types of modalities can be divided into those treatments which will stimulate the tissues of the body. Ultrasound and phonophoresis

42). This modality uses the basic components of ultrasound technology, but adds a topical drug during the application of phonophoresis treatment. Some of the more common medicated drugs applied during phonophoresis treatment are hydrocortisone, cortisol, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. The ultrasonic energy is used to transfer the drug to the deep tissues of the area being treated. Musculoskeletal injuries, hypertension, and inflammation can be treated using phonophoresis. This treatment is a better, safer, and less painful way to administer topical drugs. The reason for this is simple, there are no needles being injected into the body which could cause infection, the treatment is noninvasive, and the delivery of the drug in enhanced by this

Cryotherapy helps a patient by lowering the amount of blood the body is delivering to the injured area of the body and by lowering the number of vasoactive agents. The vasoactive agents are the substances which cause inflammation and fluid filtration. Cold therapy not only reduces the swelling but also helps lower the pain of the injuried area. Patients with bleeding, thermal burns, joint pain, edema, synovial inflammation, and collagenolysis would be candidates for this modality. In these patients, cryotherapy would be used to reduce all these symptoms. Conduction, convection, and evaporation are the mechanisms that cryotherapy encompasses. The types of cryotherapy include gel ice packs (conduction), chipped ice bags, ice massages, iced towels, iced bath immersion (convection), and vapocoolant spray (evaporation). Each cold treatment is specific to the part of the body needed to be treated and the amount of the time the cryotherapy can be used before damaging the tissues due to long exposure to cold. For example, if a larger area needs to be healed, then the therapist might choose the ice towel treatment as opposed to the ice massage