Spine injuries can be mild or quite serious. However, even if you have a mild injury, the back pain you feel can be enough to disrupt your life. There are several methods for treating spinal injuries, so if you've recently been injured or you have an old injury you've never completely healed from, you may want to seek help from a spine rehabilitation center. Here are some treatments they might provide that could help.
Offer Chiropractic Treatments
Spinal manipulations help your spine move back into a more normal alignment. These treatments might help if you fell or were in an accident and experienced a sudden impact that jarred your back and spine. A chiropractor can also offer decompression treatments that help when a nerve is being irritated or pinched by your spine when the spine is out of alignment. A chiropractor might also offer massage treatments that relax the muscles in your spine so they aren't stiff and make your back pain worse.
Help With Adaptive Equipment
When you have a spinal cord injury, your extremities could be affected. You may need to use a wheelchair or use adaptive equipment to feed and clothe yourself. A spine rehabilitation center might employ occupational therapists and physical therapists who can evaluate you to determine the equipment you need to live your best life possible and then help you become accustomed to using it.
Physical Therapy Exercises
Physical therapy is often an important aspect of rehabilitation. If you've been hospitalized for a long time or immobile at home, your muscles can become weak, and that increases your risk of additional back injuries. Physical therapy exercises help restore strength in your muscles as best possible so your muscles can support your spine.
Cord Injury Treatments
If your spinal cord was also injured, your symptoms will usually require more intense care. You might need traction or surgery, and that means you'll need more complex rehabilitation treatments because you'll need to heal from your medical procedures as well as heal from the injury. It may not be possible to restore a severely injured spinal cord, but a spine rehabilitation center can help you recover to the best of your ability. A spine center might even provide experimental treatments or cutting edge treatments like stem cell therapy to assist your rehabilitation.
While you might undergo basic rehab and therapy while you're still in the hospital, you'll get specialized care from a spine rehabilitation center that has equipment to treat spinal injuries and staff trained in spine and spinal cord conditions. Some centers may provide inpatient treatment for serious spinal cord injuries, but you can also find outpatient treatment centers for less serious problems where you can learn exercises and techniques you can use on your own at home in addition to treatments in the clinic.
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