This is probably one of the most asked questions in the clinic: “how are you different to the physiotherapists I’ve seen?”. The differences are huge and often hard to put into words without having experienced both therapies.
Similar to Physiotherapist we also assess, diagnose and treat musculoskeletal conditions and are passionate about doing so.
The biggest difference is that Soft Tissue Occupational Therapy is very “hands on”. You will never leave an Soft Tissue Occupational Therapy appointment and not have pain relief. We use a variety of manual therapy techniques including trigger point therapy, Myofascial release and dry needling to elicit positive muscle changes to assist with recovery.
We also have a different perspective to injury recovery. As the name suggests Occupational Therapists are passionate about recovery through Occupation. An Occupation is defined as everything you do in your day that has meaning to you. This may include leisure activities, work or even self care activities like washing your hair or cooking dinner, whatever you place meaning in. Occupational Therapists focus is getting you back to doing this Occupations without limitations rather than restoring normal movement patterns. This means that along with injury recovery and pain management Soft Tissue Occupational Therapists also work on performance enhancement for Athletes to ensure that they can perform to the best of their ability.