It can happen in a heartbeat: One moment you’re doing a typical task at work, and the next, you’ve become injured, unable to continue to work and possibly needing surgery or other medical treatment. It’s a journey of repair, recovery and rebuilding that can take weeks or even months, and that can at times feel discouraging and even defeating.
If that has happened to you, you’re not alone: In 2017, there were a total of 882,730 occupational injuries and illnesses that resulted in injured workers having to take time off of work in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most were the result of overexertion, falls, slips and trips.
Thankfully, our physical therapists and hand therapists at Spooner Physical Therapy specialize in helping you get healthy and back on the job as swiftly and safely as possible. Not only that, they’re skilled at training your body to be even stronger and less prone to repeat injury.
We asked Emily Baker, PT, DPT, CAFS, FAFS who has extensive experience treating injured workers, to explain how a therapist is specially suited to help you manage a successful recovery, and to find out more about what the process looks like.
A Key Part of Your Return to Work Team
Emily says that therapists are unlike no other specialist on your support team after an injury: A therapist has the training and expertise to look at the way your entire body functions and moves in order to rehabilitate current issues, and guard against future problems.
“When you’re looking at the whole body, you’re looking at what could go wrong, vs. what has gone wrong,” based on the specific demands of someone’s job, as well as their daily life, she says, noting that there are many body systems that are affected by the demands of your work. “Let’s say you have a shoulder injury. That directly affects your shoulder, but it also affects your neck and elbow. And there can be effects to the entire spine, because your cervical spine is connected to your thoracic spine, and that to your lumbar spine.”
You know the old song: “The thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone, the hip bone’s connected to the backbone…”? That’s what Emily is referring to: Your entire body is made up of musculoskeletal connections, so when one joint, muscle or bone gets injured, there’s the potential for a chain reaction of problems.
And that’s just what physical therapists are trained to help you overcome.
Of course, you as the patient also have a very important job when it comes to therapy. Here, Emily shares her top three ways you and your therapist can work together.
#1: Communicate Openly & Often
When you first visit the therapist following a musculoskeletal injury (and surgery, if it was required), her first step will be to ask you about the specific duties of your job. “I like to get as much detail as possible about the environment they work in. Probably the most important thing up front is getting as clear as possible a picture of what they deal with day-to-day,” Emily says.
She stresses that your therapist will need to make therapy look as much as possible like what you have to do at work—and because she’s not an expert in your job, you’ll need to accurately describe exactly what you do. Emily says don’t hold back: “Anything you think I might want to know, I want to know. Don’t assume something isn’t important or too irrelevant to mention.”
Even if you’ve returned to work, be sure to communicate any changing demands of your job, so your therapist can make any necessary adjustments.
#2: Commit to Your Therapy
Physical therapy is not effective if its not done consistently. “We’re relying a lot on the body to heal itself, and it responds to the stress put upon it,” Emily explains. “If you don’t place the stresses upon it as prescribed, then your body won’t respond as planned.”
That means faithfully doing the exercises your therapist gives you, whether at the clinic or as homework, and not skipping appointments. Emily says it also means showing up to any follow-up appointments with your surgeon or medical doctor.
#3: Count on Your Resources
Emily says the relationship between you and your therapist extends to everyone managing your care: your surgeon, medical doctor, and nurse case manager (where applicable). Those resources help create a framework for the physical or hand therapist to work within, and it’s important that they keep tabs on you throughout the process, so together they can determine when you can safely get back to your job.
View your nurse case manager as an advocate for your care and realize that they want to see you progress. If you don’t have a nurse case manager, Emily says you can count on your therapist to be an advocate for you. Your physical therapist, nurse case manager and surgeon or primary care physician all have the same goal: getting you back to work—and back to full health and vitality.
Learn more about Work Injury Rehabilitation at Spooner Physical Therapy. Ready to schedule an appointment? Schedule an appointment or complimentary movement screen with a Spooner physical therapist at one of our locations throughout the valley.