The new rules around social distancing and self-isolation raise questions about what businesses should continue to operate and what things people should be avoiding right now. As Physiotherapy and Exercise Physiology fall under important Allied Health Care, the state and federal government has deemed it an essential service that should continue to serve the community.
Whilst you may have concerns about continuing to see your Physiotherapist or Exercise Physiologist, what’s important to remember is that in these times – more so than ever before – it is important to continue to look after your physical health and with that in mind, we want to assure you that Precision Physio is here to support.
Why is ongoing treatment important for me?
When your injure yourself, your body triggers a series of complex physiological responses that are designed to begin the healing processes. Unfortunately, as you have to continue to function whilst you are recovering from an injury, the body begins to compensate and perform sub-optimally, which leads to lingering pain or impaired function of the damaged area.
For example, after a rolled ankle, swelling of the area creates stiffness of the ankle and muscular weakness. Left untreated, this creates a biomechanical fault which changes the way you move and can lead to further injury at the ankle or pain in the knee, hip or even into the spine.
In this way, even if the ankle “feels fine,” there can be secondary complications which need to be treated to prevent further injury. Physiotherapy is designed to aid the body with its own recovery processes and also deal with the secondary complications that arise with any injury. This includes stiffness, pain, swelling and muscular weakness.
Exercise Physiology (EP) continues this process by identifying how the body has changed its movement patterns in compensation for the injury. EPs are trained to assess and correct your movement, and strengthen the body to maintain this movement going forwards, greatly reducing the risk of re-injury.
By cancelling or discontinuing treatment, the momentum and progress made with treatment is lost. Range of motion begins to stiffen, muscular strength is reduced and movement patterns are forgotten. Obviously, this means your risk of re-injuring or making the injury worse greatly increases, and means your future rehabilitation will be longer and more expensive.
Is it safe to go to a Physio at the moment?
At Precision Physio, hygiene always has been front of mind for us. We have recently reviewed and updated our infection control guidelines in the face of the new COVID-19 outbreak, to ensure the safety of you and our therapists. Our policy includes:
- Disinfecting beds before and after every appointment
- Wiping down of all gym equipment before and after use
- Ensuring therapists and clients have disinfected their hands before and after each appointment
- Gowns, towels and shorts all single-use items that are washed with disinfectant
- Encouraging those with cold/flu symptoms to stay home and refusing to treat people with symptoms for the safety of others in the clinic
- A minimum of two deep cleans of the entire clinic each day – wiping down of all surfaces, mopping, vacuuming
These policies were implemented to allow you to continue your treatment in a safe and secure environment.
Continuing your Physiotherapy journey allows you to fully recover from your injury and fix those issues for good. It also helps combat the issues surrounding working from home and social isolation, which you can read more about here.
How do I book an appointment?
We’re taking the health of our clients, members and staff very seriously and our preference would be for you to call to book an appointment, so that we can make sure to explain our approach to keeping you safe. You can call any of these numbers to schedule a session:
- Customer Support Centre: 02 8607 4000
- Precision Physio Concord: 02 9736 3950
- Precision Physio St Marys: 02 9623 2220
Online Consultations
Evolving with the current environment, we are also now offering online appointments, meaning that we can support anyone who is unable to leave their home. Sessions are done via Zoom and as long as you have a laptop or tablet with an inbuilt camera, or a phone with camera, we can help!
To learn more about online consultations, please call us on any of the numbers listed above.
