You look down at your phone for just a second, and when you look up, the car in front of you has stopped. You slam on your brakes, but your car runs into the back of the other car. This scenario is all too common in Wexford, Pennsylvania. In fact, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation reported almost 29,000 rear-end collisions in the state in 2017. Such collisions can easily cause a neck injury called whiplash, but there are two physical therapy methods that can help you recover from this car accident injury.
1. Soft tissue mobilization
There are many types of manual therapy used by Wexford physical therapists, but soft tissue mobilization is one that very helpful for treating whiplash. You see the violent back-and-forth head movement that leads to whiplash can also cause tears in the neck muscles. As these tears heal, they can develop scar tissue, and these areas of scar tissue are called adhesions.
Adhesions make it harder for your neck muscles to move normally, and this can increase the pain you feel in your neck. These scar tissue deposits can also cause other issues, too. For instance, they can reduce blood flow to the injured neck muscle and slow down healing. Soft tissue mobilization involves the physical therapist doing hand movements designed to break up scar tissue. Once the scar tissue is gone, you may feel less pain, and your whiplash can also heal faster.
2. Trigger point therapy
Another whiplash-related muscle issue physical therapy can help treat is trigger points. Trigger points are areas of tension that have built up in a muscle, and whiplash is just the type of injury that can cause you to develop trigger points in your neck and shoulder muscles.
Using trigger point therapy, physical therapists can help relieve the tension in these muscles. This can not only get rid of trigger points, it can also help speed up your recovery from whiplash. To target trigger points, therapists typically use their hands to massage and manipulate the muscle in various ways. Also, specially designed metal tools can be used to help reduce especially stubborn trigger points.
Whiplash physical therapy is available at Panther Physical Therapy in Wexford, PA
Panther Physical Therapy is proud to have a clinic in Wexford to assist people with their injuries and medical conditions. Our team offers free screenings to help identify the root cause of your symptoms. We also build individualized treatment plans for issues like whiplash, and your plan may include therapy techniques like those mentioned above. It can also make use of other techniques like:
Take the next step to find relief from whiplash symptoms. Contact us today for more information or to schedule an initial appointment.