Does your back twinge when you’re out walking the dog for a while? Are you finding that your back hurts when playing with your grandkids? Answering yes to these questions should prompt you to seek help from a physical therapist. 

It’s common for Americans to experience back pain, especially in their lower back. One study reports that about 31 million Americans are living with lower back pain at any given time. An experienced physical therapist can help you learn the source of your back pain. In addition, they can help you find effective treatments for your back pain. 

These three physical therapy methods can help treat your back pain

Physical therapists are experts at treating issues that affect the human musculoskeletal system. This includes conditions that affect the back. Your therapist can do a comprehensive exam to determine what’s causing your pain. Once they’ve done so, they can build you an individualized physical therapy plan to treat your back pain. 

Such a plan might include therapy techniques like: 

1. Manual therapy — This is a category of physical therapy that includes techniques where your physical therapist applies friction, pressure or mobilizing forces to joints or soft tissue. These forces are applied with your therapist’s hands. Manual therapy is typically helpful for back pain. A study of manual therapy found that it helped patients reduce their local back pain by 22%. The same study also shows that it helped decrease radiating back pain by 35%. 

2. Spinal stabilization — This technique involves patients performing exercises to improve the stability of their spine. Your physical therapist can show you how to perform such exercises. Working on spinal stabilization with a specialist can be helpful for your back pain. One study reports that patients who worked on spinal stabilization with a physical therapist had nearly double the pain relief compared to those who didn’t. 

3. Aquatic therapy — Doing some aquatic therapy, which takes place in a heated pool, for your back pain can be beneficial. Aquatic therapy can help naturally decompress your spine. It can also help you be more stable during therapy movements. An aquatic therapy study reveals that this method has a high patient satisfaction. This study found that more than 90% of patients who had six months of aquatic therapy felt their back pain had improved. 

Find top-notch physical therapy for your back pain at Franklin Rehab

Are you looking for a physical therapy team that can help you with back pain? Look no further than the experienced physical therapists at Franklin Rehabilitation. We offer free screenings designed to pinpoint the source of your back pain. In addition, our specialists excel at constructing personalized therapy plans using all the techniques discussed above and more. 

Contact our team today for more information about how we can help treat your back pain or to schedule an initial appointment.