Physical rehabilitation is a treatment that aims to recover the state that was lost due to an illness or injury.
Physical rehabilitation is the treatment that a person develops to recover the condition or state that they lost due to an illness or other type of health disorder.
It should be noted that rehabilitation is the process and result of rehabilitating . This verb refers to re-enabling, resetting , or recovering something . The physical , for its part, is associated with the corporal or the material .
Physical rehabilitation according to the WHO
According to the World Health Organization ( WHO ), rehabilitation seeks to restore the capabilities of a disabled patient . The goal is for the person to have an autonomous life, depending to the smallest possible degree on others.
Physical rehabilitation, simply put, aims at bodily functionality . Rehabilitation tasks aim for the individual to improve their mobility and physical abilities through exercises, massages and other techniques .
Injuries that affect muscles , ligaments , tendons , joints and bones usually require physical rehabilitation to recover the strength of the components and the balance in the relationship between them. A degenerative disease or traumatic event can cause this type of injury and require rehabilitation.
Suppose a person crashes his car and suffers a broken bone in his left leg. After a surgical intervention, the individual must receive physical rehabilitation treatment from a specialist, to be able to walk again and then, little by little, resume their normal life without restrictions.
Physical rehabilitation can be carried out in different ways.
Classification according to type
There are various types of physical rehabilitation, which are largely differentiated by the techniques and tools used, as varied as the application of electricity, heat or cold. Let's look at some of them below.
Electrotherapy
It is a branch of physiotherapy that uses the generation of physical stimuli through an electrical current to obtain a physiological response that provides the patient with a therapeutic effect. For this, several different pieces of equipment can be used, among which the following three stand out:
- Therapeutic ultrasound : This device is commonly known as ultrasound and allows the emission of sound waves between 1 and 3 MHz (which are considered high frequency), with the aim of generating heat deep in the tissues and treating certain problems that They prevent the proper functioning of muscles and bones.
- Transcutaneous nerve stimulation : the name by which this technique is usually mentioned is TENS and it consists of the stimulation of a particular nerve structure through electrodes that are fixed to the body and connected to a generator, which allows the duration to be adjusted, frequency and intensity of electrical impulses. It is used to treat painful scars, low back pain and herpes, among many other disorders.
- Electroacupuncture : consists of the application of micro-current to stimulate certain points known as meridians , through which it is possible to correct energy imbalances present in the body. It is especially effective in pathologies that do not present a physical injury, such as migraine and sciatica.
Thermotherapy
It is a discipline that consists of applying heat through conduction, convection or radiation, with methods as diverse as the application of paraffin and infrared radiation , both on the surface and at a deep level of the tissues. Among its most notable advantages is pain relief , increased blood flow and decreased blood pressure .
Cryotherapy
Almost opposite to thermotherapy, cryotherapy relies on the application of cold to obtain therapeutic effects. The systems used are also many, as well as the benefits for the patient, among which are the reduction of pain, the resorption of edema, the reduction of inflammation and the increase in muscle tone.