Athletic Therapy in Airdrie | Explained: Everything You Need to Know

So, we’re a type of health care practitioner that kind of specializes in the assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation of any aches and pains, whether that is chronic or acute. So, we can help people help manage and overcome specific injuries that they come in for through manual work, different treatment techniques, the use of modalities, or any kind of exercise prescription that we can give them throughout their days.

An athletic therapist is a therapist who specializes in hands-on and rehab for different injuries. Specifically, athletic therapy focuses on the musculoskeletal system of the human body, which is your muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons—all those different areas of the body. Specifically, we’re called athletic therapists because, in school, a lot of our knowledge is centered around different athletic movements. But because of that, it puts us in a really good spot to utilize the knowledge that we have with everyday movements and everyday activities with clients that come in and other injuries that come in from day-to-day work, like from work or your day-to-day activities, that sort of thing.

So, no—athletic therapists, we treat anyone, whether it is a youth being active in sports, an individual who just wants to incorporate more exercise throughout their day, or seniors; we kind of see it all. So yeah, anyone who has any aches and pains, we can treat. As an athletic therapist, we can work with any population, any kind of person.

How Athletic Therapy Differs from Physiotherapy

We are called athletic therapists because we have a specialization in understanding sport and those movements. But because of that understanding, we’re able to take that and use it in any environment, like if your injury is caused from your work environment or different hobbies you do on the side, like if you’re blue-collar or if you’re a desk job. We can take what we know about biomechanics and use that to help figure out what exactly is going on and why your injury was caused.

Athletic therapy, we kind of take a whole-body approach. So, if someone’s in pain, we also look at structures surrounding it and other things that could be affecting the pain. We also kind of gear more towards the sports medicine approach, where we can kind of get the body to a very, like, progressed level, depending on client goals. Athletic therapists are also certified to work on-field, primarily with sports teams and different kind of events such as cheerleading. Like, there’s a lot of things that we can do. So, we can do more of the first responder approach with an assessment and treatment of emergency injuries, taping, and injury prevention as well.

The Performance Edge in Rehabilitation

The big differences between athletic therapy and physiotherapy is athletic therapy—our training is directed towards more sport-based situations and more emergency condition situations, where physiotherapy, they learn kind of a broad scope of different systems of the body. You have your musculoskeletal, your nervous system, circulatory, all the other areas. And they focus a lot on bringing you back to your daily functional movements and things you need to do—your basic movements—where athletic therapy, we can take you past that point.

So, we can get you to that basic function, your everyday functions, but then we can take you further than that. Like, if you’re running and you find that your injury exacerbates when you do that activity, we can break down that run and we can get you back to that performance or even better and be that more optimal movement.

What to Expect During Your Initial Assessment at Revival Therapeutics

So, with me, I kind of just do an initial with a client. So, I get to know them. I ask them what they’re in for. Depending on if it’s an injury that happened right away or if it’s more chronic pain, we kind of gear more towards getting a sense of, you know, asking about previous injuries, their daily activities, what they do for their job, and previous medical history as well. Then I kind of go through a very in-depth assessment. So, kind of looking at the whole body, whether it’s levels, palpation of the muscles, doing kind of special tests, depending on what they’re in for. And then if there’s time, I kind of do treatment, so anything that can help benefit the patient in the initial assessment, and then at the end, I give them a few exercises that they can do throughout their days.

First session with me, what happens: I’ll greet you at the door, bring you into the room, and in that initial assessment at first, we talk a lot. We talk—I want to get a lot of detail into your life, not just on the injury itself, but I like to get to know you as a whole and how your body inter… how you interact with your body through different parts of your life. Even areas that you might don’t think are affecting the injury you came in with. I like to get an idea on your whole self so that as I’m going through, I have all the pieces, and potentially there are pieces that are missing that could be affecting the reason you’re coming in.

Creating a Plan for Long-Term Relief

And then after that, I do a thorough movement assessment. I get you seeing how you’re walking. I see how you stand and where there’s different imbalances in your body. So, I can see or potentially where there’s misalignment in your body. So, I can see how things are affecting each other from your toes all the way down, all the way up to your head. And then from there, I always say that the main goal of that first appointment is making a plan moving forward.

Figuring out exactly what pieces are causing your injury or your discomfort and taking that, making a plan moving forward, and more so educating you on what’s going on with your body is kind of the big importance for me in that first appointment. We’ll have a little bit of time for treatment and I’ll give you some relief. But for me, the big importance is making sure you understand what’s happening with your body and the plan moving forward.

Insurance Coverage and Results for Athletic Therapy

Most insurance companies do cover athletic therapy. So, it is… it’s best to just check with your insurance provider just to see if it is covered, if you’re planning on using it. And no, we don’t need a referral to book here. So, if you’re having any aches or pains, you can come in. Athletic therapy can be covered by insurance. It depends on your insurance company. So, I highly suggest if you’re looking at athletic therapy to double-check with your insurance if that is a driving factor for you and double-checking that you have that coverage, or some clients also use if they have a their health spending account.

We do have clients that use their health spending account for their appointments with us as well. And but we also have a lot of clients that come who don’t have insurance coverage. They see the value in what we’ve offered and usually find that they’ve tried lots of other options and find that our therapists at Revival get them the relief that they’ve been looking for.

How Quickly Will You See Results?

So, each session is different just depending on what you’re in for, depending on your injury. But typically, most patients should see some kind of positive, positive improvement after the first session, whether that is a little bit of relief or if it’s just an increase of range of motion. Yeah. So, I would say typically at least after the first, but some patients it might take a bit longer. Just depends on the injury.

Results with my clients—I find they tend to start getting results right after that first appointment. Sometimes it’s a little, sometimes it’s a lot more. For me, that big part is an… that education aspect in that first appointment. So to me, even if you’re understanding your body better and how it’s moving or how it should be moving, that makes a big change in giving you some relief. Even if something happens and there isn’t a ton of hands work, hands-on work done in that first appointment, a lot of the time that settles a lot of nerves or other issues that come with chronic pain or even acute pain.

So treatment generally should not be painful. If a patient is feeling a lot of pain or soreness, we would love to know just so that we can either decrease pressure and adjust it to your comfort level. So no, it should not be painful. You might feel a bit sore after. But your athletic therapist will definitely tell you what you should expect after treatment.

Common Conditions and Specialized Success Stories

As an athletic therapist, I’ve treated most things you can think of. ACL reconstruction, meniscus tears in the knee, ankle sprains. They’ve treated lots of shoulder injuries from labrum tears to AC separation, shoulder impingements. I’ve treated herniated discs in the back, different clients coming in and not even… not being sure what’s going on, and just having a lot of neck or shoulder tension or different areas of the body. You name it, I’ve probably treated it at this point.

But things that I’ve found I do really well with or I’ve gotten really good success with is a lot of shoulder injuries or shoulder and neck issues with clients. Whether it’s tension or pain, sort of thing. I find I have a lot of success with that because I tend to take a lot of your… your neck and your skull into the account with that. And I find I get a lot of good results when things are directed around the feet, the ankles, and usually that compensates up to the hip and knee. So, it plays a factor in that. But I find those are some key areas that I’ve had a lot of success with.

Some more unique things that I find I have a lot of success with is I’ve had some clients come in with sinus issues where they have like regular chronic congestion and I’ve found relief for them, which is pretty unique in that sense. And I like to take into account that… how the nervous system plays a factor in what’s going on with clients and their body and their injuries. And I’ve found I do a good job of addressing that portion of exercises where other client… or where clients have said they’ve kind of missed that portion. I do really well is with hypermobile patients. I have a lot of experience working with them at this point and learning how to really bring… meet them where they are and learning how to build their strength and build their mobility back up so that they can stabilize their joint space and be in less discomfort.