Have you ever felt the pain of not changing your position, just sitting there, without making any movement for a long period of time? We as normal and mobile persons tend to change our position time-to-time almost automatically we never we feel pain or discomfort in our buttocks. But how about the immobile, the elderly, the paralyze, patients with motion limitation confined for long hours in a wheelchair who can hardly lift themselves up just to change position for pressure relief? These persons with severe disabilities are more likely at risk developing pressure sore.
Being a Physical Therapist involves well, getting physical. Stretching patients, performing manual techniques such as myofascial release and joint mobilization, assisting in bed mobility and transfers (sometimes just lifting them completely), facilitating active (and passive!) ambulation, and the like are just some of the things that we do. It does not sound so tiring when you read about it but any PT can attest to how “difficult” it can be to perform all that on one patient, much more on 10+ patients every single day. On top of that, we also have other responsibilities to deal with i.e. friends, family and actually living life.
That being said, you can see that it can get pretty tiring working as a PT. PTs not only have to take care of the health of their patients, but also of their own health. We must then be able to listen to our own bodies and pay attention to any changes that we experience in order to keep ourselves in tip-top shape. Sometimes we forget to do just that and we start experiencing that occasional back spasm, neck discomfort or general fatigue. Here are five tips that can help you beat back weariness, body pain, and stress and add that extra “spring” to your step during your working hours at the clinic, hospital, gym, etc. Most likely these tips aren’t new to you, but hopefully this list reminds you of the things that you can to do to be better every day.