Soft tissue injuries are those that occur to the muscles, skin and connective tissues in your body. These injuries include repetitive stress injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis, but they can also occur as a result of a fall or car accident, to name just a couple of causes. While each case is different, treatments for soft tissue injuries can help reduce pain and swelling, and your therapy also can include treatments to help restore your previous activity level.
Acute Intervention
This is some of the first therapy you will undergo as part of your treatment for a soft tissue injury. The goal at this point is to help reduce swelling and pain while beginning to restore movement to your affected area. You may use ice to help reduce swelling in addition to using a compression bandage, resting the area and elevating it over the level of your heart to help control swelling and blood flow to the area. If you're suffering serious pain, you may be treated with transcutaneous electrical muscle stimulation, where an electrical current is passed through the affected muscles to help block the pain impulses to your brain. You also may receive pain medications or learn preventive exercises to help control swelling and pain.
Joint Mobilization Therapy
Joint mobilization therapy helps loosen stiff joints as a result of immobilization, swelling or other factors from your injury. This therapy usually involves having your therapist move your joints slowly without any help from you. This type of passive movement can help restore proper function of your affected area. While this therapy treats soft tissue injuries, each therapy is tailored to your specific injury.
Range of Motion
Range of motion exercises differ slightly from the joint mobilization therapy in that you use your muscles to move the joints to work your affected joints through their full range of movement. This can involve moving your joints while supporting your body weight or other resistance such as resistance bands to help you get used to moving your joints under the stress of your bodyweight. Your therapist also might move your joint through its full range of motion in a passive manner, or you would perform active range of motion exercises on your own.
Strength Training
Therapy to restore strength to the area affected by your soft tissue injury involves helping restore your ability to function on a daily level. The modalities used to achieve this goal include exercises to help stabilize your affected muscles while strengthening them in order to return to your previous activity level. This can involve exercises performed with weights, resistance bands or even exercise balls.
