Hard headed.
You have always known and have been told numerous times that you are hard-headed, but yesterday you discovered a head harder than yours. Your dog’s! Your furry ball of energy wanted you to throw him a toy, so you bent down to get it just as he was bounding back up after dropping it, and the two of you knocked heads! Unfortunately, he got your cheekbone just under your right eye, and even though you iced it for two hours yesterday, you still ended up with a shiner, You still love your hard-headed golden doodle, but you are not looking forward to going out in public any time soon.
The fact that you have been labeled hard headed, of course, is an advantage in many ways. The four times you have had surgeries, twice on your right ankle, once on your left hip, and once on your left shoulder, your hard headedness came in handy. In fact, every orthopedic surgeon, gymnastics coach, and physical therapist that you have worked with has been astounded with your efforts. You follow every exercise plan, making sure to meet, if not exceed the reps that are asked of you. In fact, the one problem that you have often faced during the days when you were trying to get back to competition shape was not over doing it. You learned, however, to trust your physical therapist and the information that they gleaned from the automatic strength testing they did on you. They were always adamant in telling you that you should not do more of certain exercises than prescribed and were often astounded at the progress you would make when you returned later in the week and were put through another series of range of motion testing regimens. With the best doctors, therapists, and range of motion testing solutions you were able to make your way back into the college line up, competing on balance beam and floor exercise every meet of your senior year.
The latest physical assessment software allows therapists to target the exact areas that need work and with a combination of the right rehab tools and systems many athletes find that they are able to get back to the sport that they love. Rehabbing back into competition shape, of course, is far different from returning to a less active lifestyle. Fortunately, the use of the latest rehab tools and systems allows therapists to help their patients achieve many different levels of activity following an injury, an accident, or a surgery. As a result, it should come as no surprise that the job outlook for physical therapists is projected to grow by 28% from 2016 – 2026. That is much faster than the average growth rate of all occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As important as the work of athletes returning to the spot they love, of course, is the work of many Americans returning to their everyday lives and work. Unfortunately, as any as 31 million Americans experience low-back pain at any given time and many of these folks are limited in the kind of work that they are able to do without the help of therapists and the latest rehab tools and systems.
Did you know that low back pain is the single leading cause of disability worldwide? This means that a hard head when it comes to following through on the needed therapies is not going to be enough if you are not also working with the most experienced doctors who are using the latest rehab tools and systems. The good news is that the latest research indicates that there are approximately 200,000 physical therapists employed in the U.S. with an additional 60,000 projected to be added to the workforce in the coming years. Whether you are a rehabbing athlete or an older person just trying to live a more productive life, it is important to know that engaging in just 10 minutes of physical activity every day can help any person improve mobility and live longer. Of course, even 10 minutes of activity can seem impossible if you are someone who is dealing with debilitating back pain or other kinds of physical limitations.