Many sports injuries benefit from physiotherapy for recovery from ligament sprains, muscle strains, fractures, and dislocations.
Depending on the results of your physiotherapy examination and evaluation, your physiotherapist can provide a comprehensive and personalised treatment plan. You may start the treatment right away following your initial evaluation.
In this article we explore how the aftermath of a sports injury can be managed with physiotherapist Nutnarinee Lerdsatittroong, better known as Khun Prahn. She’s the founder of Hua Hin’s ‘The Movement Clinic’, offering a range of services all about improving mobility, including getting you moving again after suffering from a sports injury.
Khun Prahn explains how the POLICE PRINCIPLE can be an immediate response to sports injuries. POLICE is an acronym that stands for Protection, Optimal Loading, Ice Compression, and Elevation. It promotes and guides safe and effective soft tissue injury management.
Protection
Protect emphasizes the importance of avoiding further tissue damage, but doesn’t imply indefinite immobilisation. This could include using supports to protect and reduce the load on injured extremities, while actively engaging in daily tasks to restrict movement and the supports such as crutches or braces with rest to heal the injury.
Optimal Loading
Optimal loading will stimulate the healing process as bone, tendon, ligament and muscle all require some loading to stimulate healing. Optimal loading may include a wide range of manual techniques. Crutches, braces, and supports, traditionally associated with rest, may have a greater role in adjusting and regulating optimal loading in the early stages of rehabilitation.
The right amount of activity can help to manage oedema. For example in the ankle, contraction of the calf muscles helps to move swelling up the body against gravity. Complete rest would prevent this. However in some instances, loading may not be advisable, i.e. severe fractures that need surgery.
Ice
Ice therapy reduces tissue metabolism and causes blood vessel constriction to manage acute pain and reduce swelling. This physiological change slows and prevents further swelling, an important consideration for early active exercises after the initial period of rest. Ice also decreases stimuli to the brain which can reduce pain and muscle spasm. However, applying cryotherapy for an extended period of time can be detrimental to the healing process.
Compression
Compression serves to prevent further Oedema (swelling) as a result of the inflammatory process and also by reducing bleeding at the site of tissue damage. An elasticated bandage should be used to provide a comfortable compression force without causing pain or overly constricting blood vessels.
Bandaging should begin distal to the injury (away from the body’s centre) and move proximally (towards the body’s centre), overlapping each previous layer by one half.
Elevation
Elevation will prevent swelling by increasing venous return to the systemic circulation, and reducing hydrostatic pressure thereby reducing oedema and facilitating waste removal from the site of injury. Ensure that the lower limb is above the level of the heart.
Here are some physiotherapy treatments that may be included in the rehabilitation plan developed by Khun Prahn, depending on the type and extent of your injury.
Ice Pack Application – During the acute stage (first 48 hours) to reduce inflammation
When dealing with an acute sports injury, often ice pack application is prescribed. Icing could be immensely helpful in minimising your swelling and pain that are caused by your injury. Your physiotherapist would be wrapping an ice pack preferably with a towel around the affected area. An ice pack would be applied to the affected area for 10-15 minutes.
Hot Pack Application – For ongoing chronic pain
If your injury is not accompanied by any sort of a swelling, then your physiotherapist may consider using a hot pack that is wrapped preferably in a towel. This pack would be applied by your physiotherapist for about twenty minutes. Hot pack application may be effective in alleviating pain and joint or muscle stiffness and speeding up the healing process simply by boosting blood flow to the affected or injured body part.
Ultrasound
An ultrasound is a device or machine used for driving sound vibrations directly into your tissues. It is a deep heating modality or apparatus. This machine is effective in heating up bulky body areas or deeper tissues. Ultrasound is used by your physiotherapist for helping your healing process, pain relief or softening your deeper tissues.
Massage & Mobilisation
Your physiotherapist might be using soft tissue mobilisation or massage for relaxing tight muscles, to increase the range of movement and reducing tissue adhesions to decrease swelling or relieving pain. Massage goes a long way in alleviating the pain.
Stretching
Muscles tend to become tight when they are inactive following an injury. Stretching is very effective in loosening tight muscles. It helps in enhancing Range of Motion. Your physiotherapist would be guiding you about the self-stretching exercises.
Follow this link for more information about stretching – https://royalcoastreview.com/2022/03/the-benefits-of-stretching-advice-from-the-movement-physiotherapy-clinic/
Range of Motion
ROM exercises could be helpful in not only improving but maintaining your joint’s range of motion. ROM exercises are good for preventing your muscles and joints from becoming stiff.
Strengthening Exercises
If due to an injury you have been inactive for a while, you tend to develop weak muscles. Long periods of inactivity or lack of exercise can weaken your muscles tremendously. To achieve the requisite range, independence, and ease of movement, it is important to strengthen these muscles. Strengthening exercises can build bulk, repair injured or fatigued muscle and help maintain the strength of your muscles.
For more information about gaining strength see – https://royalcoastreview.com/2022/05/getting-to-the-core-of-the-matter-for-stability-and-motion/
About The Movement Physiotherapy Clinic: https://royalcoastreview.com/2022/03/changing-lives-through-movement-a-thai-physiotherapists-mission-in-hua-hin/
