What Everyone Ought To Know About Physiotherapy
- Physiotherapy is a primary care treatment and while it’s the most common referral from Australian GPs, a referral is by no means required. This means you can walk in to most physiotherapists off the street and make an appointment. We do take private health funds to help you subsidise costs, or if you are referred under a care plan, you might receive your treatment bulk billed. The benefit of being a primary health service is that you can get the relief you need right away.
- We don’t just do passive or hands-on treatment! In fact, a very large part of what we do is hands-off. While we are trained to use a wide range of manual therapy techniques (like mobilisation, manipulation and massage), we prefer to focus on active interventions (like exercise) as these help you regain function and foster independence. We are experts in exercise selection and programming, and can help you no matter your goal, sport or stage of recovery.
- We treat a very wide variety of conditions! We use evidence-based health education and exercise prescription to treat a range of conditions such as chronic pain, soft tissue injuries, and functional disorders. There are many specialty areas in physio, with ‘sports physiotherapy’ being just one. Did you know there are also cardiorespiratory, neurological, paediatric AND women’s health physiotherapists, just to name a few? Physiotherapy is diverse and there are many ways that it can help you return to function and reduce your pain. At Sycamore Health, we have the skills to help you with whatever pain or dysfunction you are feeling, and if it’s beyond our scope, we’ll help you find the treatment you need.
- We focus on goals you actually want to achieve! We want you to enjoy your life and have it overflowing with meaningful activities to you! Socialising (or staying at home watching Netflix), going to the gym, attending a fun run, returning to the football field or just picking up your grandkids - it’s up to you!
- We help you to help yourself! Our goal is not to create dependency! This is important. When you see ANY health professional (including us at Sycamore Health) ask yourself upon leaving, “Do I feel more empowered to manage my pain/problem now and in the future, or do I feel fragile, dependent, and unable to manage my own pain/problem?
- You will get homework from us! We only see you for ~30 minutes. It is difficult to meaningfully influence your pain or condition when you have another ~10,000+ minutes in a week out of the clinic. Therefore, we will provide you with a home exercise program to get you fighting fit and help you manage your own pain!
- We care about preventing re-injury, not just short-term fixes! Our goal is to reduce recurrence as much as we can. Injury prevention is the goal and we will work with you to achieve this goal!
- We will educate you! We will never insult you by treating you as though you’re a nincompoop, ninny, or numpty, pardon my French (even if we sometimes think you are ;)). We love questions, push-back, critical thinking, and consulting the evidence-base (and will provide you with treatment rationales upon request!). Knowledge is power, and if we educate, you can manage your own pain! As the old adage goes, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.
- We can refer you for imaging, or to doctors or specialists as required - you health is our priority and we want you to receive the best care possible!
- We are always learning! We inservice multiple times a week which means we are constantly discussing, listening to, learning and debating the latest evidence as it is published. We refuse to be physiotherapy dinosaurs stuck in their ways holding you and the profession back!
- We love what we do! We are passionate about health and fitness and there’s nothing more satisfying to us than transferring our passion onto you.