Recovery vs. Rehab: When Should I See A Physiotherapist For My Injury?
“People who set goals win once. People who set systems, win repeatedly.” – James Clare
From a common ankle sprain to post-surgery recovery, one of the most common questions we are asked is: how soon after my injury should I seek out physiotherapy rehab?
To answer this question, it is good to distinguish the difference between the recovery process and rehabilitation.
Recovery refers to the time it takes to heal an injury. You can think of recovery as having three phases:
- Inflammatory Phase
- Associated with significant pain and swelling
- Proliferation or Repair Phase
- Rebuilding damaged tissues and building strength
- Remodeling Phase
- Increasing strength and functional mobility
Rehabilitation or rehab refers to the process of regaining function of the injured area and preventing re-injury. The rehab process can occur during the entire recovery phase, but often lasts well beyond recovery! Depending on the injury, physiotherapy can be beneficial as soon as the initial pain and swelling subsides.
A critical aspect to rehab that can go beyond the recovery phase is exercise prescription. Physiotherapists are trained in assessing the underlying root causes of injury, and the exercise programs they prescribe are designed to reduce that from reoccurring. Without proper and consistent rehabilitation beyond the recovery phase re-injury is much more likely to occur, even when pain-free.
With the wealth of information available online today, it is understandable that some folks choose to go about the recovery process entirely on their own. However, while all this valuable information exists, it is not always clear how and when it should be applied. A trained physiotherapist will know at what stage of the recovery process certain treatments or exercises should be implemented based on your specific case.
Listen to physiotherapist Wil Seto discuss the relationship between recovery and rehab in the YouTube video below!