Will remote physical therapy benefit me?

Social distancing protocols. Stay-at-home orders. Fear of catching the coronavirus. These are just some of the reasons people who need physical therapy are choosing remote physical therapy. 

This type of therapy is done using an internet- or app-based video session. Remote physical therapy typically involves education about your injury or medical issue. It can also include tips about doing normal daily tasks. Additionally, your physical therapist might have you do therapeutic exercises and stretches during your session. Combining treatment methods like these means that remote physical therapy can offer many benefits.

Three benefits that remote physical therapy can offer

Remote physical therapy is designed to offer many benefits to patients who use it. Here are three benefits in particular that virtual physical therapy can provide: 

1. Helping you perform more exercises daily — Physical therapists want to help you get moving as fast as possible after a surgery. It can take a while for you to start moving around regularly if you aren’t seeing a therapist. Remote physical therapy has been shown to help get patients moving again after a total knee replacement (TKR). One study reports that remote physical therapy had TKR patients moving around for about 24 minutes per day on average just eight weeks after their procedure. 

2. Getting you moving more days per week — It’s been shown that patients who do their therapy exercises more often tend to recover faster. TKR patients can have an especially tough time motivating themselves to do their exercises. With the guidance of a physical therapist via remote physical therapy, you can get moving more days per week so you can improve your recovery time. 

3. Lowering risk of hospital readmittance — Patients are particularly vulnerable to infections, reinjury and other complications after surgery. Such complications can force them to be readmitted to the hospital. In turn, this can lead to longer recovery times and higher medical costs. Remote physical therapy helps keep you out of the hospital so you can focus on your recovery without having to worry about a high risk for infection. 

Learn about more remote physical therapy benefits from Back in Motion

Wondering how you can find out about more remote physical therapy benefits? Our Back in Motion team is ready to help you. Contact our team for more information about remote physical therapy today or to schedule an initial appointment.