Skilled hands-on care to improve mobility, decrease pain, and help you move toward a full recovery.
At Bryn Mawr Sports Rehab & Physical Therapy, manual therapy is selected based on a comprehensive evaluation of your movement, joints, and soft tissues.
Manual therapy is a broad term for the various skilled techniques your Physical Therapist performs to improve soft tissue restrictions and joint mobility. The goal of any manual technique is to improve limitations in a joint or soft tissue toward a normalized pattern, decrease pain, and improve function.
Rather than applying the same approach to everyone, your Physical Therapist evaluates restricted joints and soft tissues and considers how they affect your overall movement quality. That evaluation helps determine whether manual therapy is appropriate and which techniques may best support your rehabilitation.
Hands-on techniques can be used to address pain, movement restrictions, and limitations that may be holding you back in everyday activity, work, exercise, or sport.
Manual techniques are used to address limitations in joints and soft tissues that can contribute to pain and stiffness.
Targeted care can help improve joint mobility, passive range of motion, and the way restricted areas move.
Improving restrictions and movement quality supports your ability to return to the activities that matter to you.
Your care plan is individualized. Depending on your examination findings, manual therapy techniques can include:
Soft tissue mobilization, deep friction mobilization, manual trigger point release, and massage gun work may be used to address soft tissue restrictions.
Joint mobilizations and passive range of motion can help address hypomobility and improve the movement available at a restricted joint.
Cupping and instrument assisted soft tissue massage (IASTM) are additional tools that may be incorporated when appropriate.
Patients with pain, hypomobility, and soft tissue and/or joint restrictions may benefit from manual therapy. The answer ultimately depends on your evaluation with a Physical Therapist.
Your evaluation includes a comprehensive examination of restricted joints and soft tissues to understand how they impact your overall movement quality. Manual therapy is then used as part of a plan designed around your needs and goals.
Manual therapy is one tool within physical therapy care. At BMSR, the focus is on improving how you move and function as you progress toward recovery.
Request an appointment with Bryn Mawr Sports Rehab & Physical Therapy to find out whether manual therapy may support your recovery and goals.