Treatments

Involves restoring mobility to stiff joints and reducing muscle tension in order to return the patient to more natural movement without pain.

This includes heat, cold, Ultra sound, functional dry needling, and electrical stimulation. These are all used for thermal effect, reduction of inflammation, pain control, muscle activation, and to facilitate soft tissue healing.

Neuromuscular reeducation represents a series of therapeutic techniques to restore normal function of nerves and muscles, to include movement, balance, coordination, decreased kinesthetic sense, and impaired proprioception. 

Exercise specific to the patient’s diagnosis. This includes range of motion exercises, strengthening exercise, neuromuscular reeducation, and stretching. In the clinic, we use multiple exercise machines to facilitate the aforementioned types of TE. A home exercise program is implemented to compliment what is done in the clinic.

To participate in sports, a higher level of stress is placed on the body and is more prone to injury. At Paradigm we work at preparing athletes with sport specific exercise. A runner’s program would be very different from a football offensive lineman. We tailor programs specific to the activity to maximize performance. 

This mode of treatment is to do physical therapy before surgery. This is to maximize all aspects that affect the body part being operated on. An example is for knee surgery. It is very useful to have as much range of motion and hip strength going into the surgery to help afterwards. Recovery time is decreased and better outcomes generally occur with this application. Ask your doctor for this.  

This treatment is implemented after a thorough evaluation to assess source of balance issues or vertigo. Vestibular treatment is treated for inner ear conditions that affect your balance and may cause vertigo. Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is caused by inner ear dysfunction. Balance issues can be stemming from poor body awareness (kinesthesia) and poor joint awareness. (proprioception) These are usually due to inactivity, weakness, postural instability, and muscle imbalance. For this, balance exercise, core strengthening, and NmsReed are very helpful.

After orthopedic surgery, PT is needed to rehabilitate the body part affected. Some effects after surgery are stiffness, weakness, decreased ROM, and pain. We at Paradigm progress the patient appropriately to get them back to normal function. It is usually a progression from light exercise for ROM and pain relief to eventual functional exercise for return to full activity. Post operative surgeries that are very common are  low back , neck , rotator cuff, ACL repair, and total joint replacements for all body parts. There are also many more not mentioned that we treat.

In treating older patients our approach is a bit different than younger patients. Our approach is based more on getting our elderly patients functional and for fall prevention. We still do our hands on treatment. The therapeutic exercise has higher repetition/low load activity to promote joint nutrition and more Nms Reed is emphasized. A home exercise program for long term care and prevention is, as always, emphasized, as is family education when needed.

Functional Dry Needling (FDN) is a technique our physical therapists use for the management of neuromusculoskeletal pain, trigger points, and movement impairments. The technique uses a thin filiform needle, one without medication or injection, inserted through the skin into areas of the muscle. 

FDN is used with the goal of releasing or deactivating trigger points to relieve pain or improve range of motion. Preliminary research supports that dry needling improves pain control, reduces muscle tension, and normalizes dysfunctions of the motor end plates, the sites at which nerve impulses are transmitted to muscles. This can help speed up your return to normal activities. 

FDN is not acupuncture. The methodology, purpose, desired benefits, and treatment approach are vastly different to that of acupuncture. Acupuncture is steeped in Eastern medicine; FDN is based on Western medicine, physiology and knowledge of anatomy. 

You have probably seen athletes on TV with tape on their bodies. It is Kinesiotape. This type of taping is used to increase body awareness (proprioception) and activate receptors in the joint that inhibit pain. We use this to facilitate muscle function and it has been useful for pain relief. Ask your PT about this.

The “pelvic floor” is the term use to described the muscles involved in bladder and bowel control as well as sexual function. Both men and women can have issues regarding pelvic floor function which may result in loss of bladder and bowel control, pain during intercourse, and a wide
variety of other health conditions. As pelvic floor physical therapists, we are trained to treat these conditions in a comfortable and safe way that will help patient’s return to their prior level of function and enhance their well-being. Common diagnoses we treat include pelvic pain and vaginal discomfort, urinary/fecal incontinence, constipation, urinary urgency, and overactive bladder.

We provide safe exercise prescription and progression for those who are pregnant or recently postpartum. For our new or soon-to-be mothers, we work to decrease low
back and pelvic pain, improve posture and aerobic fitness, and strengthen pelvic floor muscles to assist in a healthy delivery and shorter recovery time. Other common diagnosis we treat are pelvic organ prolapse, diastasis recti, pudendal neuralgia, surgical complications following hysterectomy/prostatectomy, and myofascial dysfunction that may result in pain during intercourse. During a typical evaluation, we perform an external and internal pelvic exam to evaluate the muscles of the pelvic floor. This allows us to determine the overall health of the pelvic floor muscles as well as identify atrophy or scar tissue that may be exacerbating current symptoms.

Typical treatments include pelvic floor down-training and relaxation techniques for those with increased muscle tone, scar tissue mobilization, trigger point release, and core/hip strengthening to provide better support to the lumbopelvic complex. We also assist patients who are dealing with incontinence in bladder/ bowel retraining and urge suppression strategies to have better control over their bladder function. We are musculoskeletal experts and are able to prescribe exercise programs that target global deficiencies to provide a more well rounded approach to our patient care. If you have any questions about the conditions we are able to treat, please do not hesitate to reach out to us so that we can determine the best course of action for your
patients.”