PASSIVE & ACTIVE TREATMENTS
Treatment mainly falls into 2 categories
Passive Treatment: Designed to address the pain (symptoms)
Active Treatment: Designed to address and cure the cause
Passive treatment is having somebody to do something to you such as ultrasound, EMS and infrared machine, needling and manual manipulation such as massage or chiropractic manipulation. Basically, you’re not required to do anything and the therapist is control during this type of treatment. Passive treatment mainly focuses on pain relief but do not address or correct the cause of the pain. Usually, passive treatment rarely increases the likelihood of complete recovery. You may enjoy a brief period of pain free movement but it is very important to combine active treatment to enhance quality of movement to recover more effectively. Also, one of the main reason why most people do not fully recover is because of too much emphasis on passive treatment alone. Stopping the rehabilitation program the moment the pain goes away only increases the odds of re-injury or cause new injuries due to compensating movements. Passive treatment is usually recommended during the early stage of rehab or post orthopedic surgery. This is to help regain minimal functionality and to promote early stage of healing.
Active treatment in the other hand requires you to be physically involved in some manner that works toward a cure. Some active treatment includes stretching, corrective exercise program and strengthening. It is extremely important that you’re given the correct active treatment program that best suits your injury or condition as well as your goals. By doing the correct exercise program, you are able to address the root of the problem and prevent yourself from re-injuring (for example, you may have been told to do yoga if you have back problem. But did you know that some yoga moves may be bad for your back?). Active treatment is really important in the middle to later stages of rehab when you’re nearly back to your full functional capacity. There should be less passive treatment during this stage. Unfortunately, most people get stuck in the rut by not getting sufficient active treatment, thinking that their problem is solved the moment the pain is gone, only to discover later that it hasn’t. The key is to get the right mix of passive and active therapies to best suit your condition.
Here at Ke Wynn PT, we adopt Deep Tissue Sports Massage and passive stretches as our Passive Treatment and corrective exercise as our Active Treatment. We emphasize Active Treatment which involves your participation towards your recovery by educating you healthy movements according to your condition and goals.
If you’re active and interested to perform better athletically, we are also able to screen for potential dysfunctional movements and maximize synergistic muscles engagement for performance and injury prevention. Or if you simply need to manage your weight but suffer from new or preexisting injury, we too can provide safe but effective exercise program and nutrition guide.