Physical & Occupational Therapy for Pain Management

Pain Consultants of East Tennessee provides both physical therapy and occupational therapy services that assist our patients in returning to normal daily activities and routines. Read more about these services below.

Physical Therapy

To provide patients with a thorough evaluation and assessment of current signs, symptoms, limitations, and abilities. These items will help determine a treatment program to increase their activity tolerance for functional activities of daily living, work activities, hobbies and recreation. Patients will be educated in movement strategies and coping tactics to increase motion tolerance while learning to work through chronic pain. This physical education will be coupled with the treatments and interventions of Occupational Therapy and Behavior Modification Intervention/Psychology for a more complete and multi-disciplined approach.

Physical Therapy will instruct the patient on how to improve their strength, flexibility and endurance through exercise strategies, stretching forms and positioning, posture awareness, and basic movement science. Other program approaches can include cardiovascular exercises, gait training, manual therapy, neuromuscular re-training, postural exercises, spinal stabilization/core stability training, strength training, modalities (moist heat, cold packs, ultra-sound, deep tissue mobilization) as needed.

At the completion of the program the patient will be able to demonstrate better posture, movement strategies, identify movement combinations of pain flare ups and strategies for relief, and exercise/stretching techniques with complete documentation/instructions to allow them to progress to an independent home program/gym facility participation for continued gains within pain maintenance/awareness.

  • RE-THINK – your current situation
  • RE-TRAIN – how to move, get stronger, to do more before you get uncomfortable
  • RE-TURN – to better quality of life and interaction with friends, family, lifestyle

Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy assesses what activities of life someone with chronic pain may be having difficulty in or not able to do at all. The goal of occupational therapy is to help individuals return to doing the activities that are important to them and their lives. The activities that occupational therapy may address could be those required for work, school, self-care, homemaking, church, community or sleep.

Individual’s with chronic pain often experience decreased participation in physical activity, changes in posture, changes in movement patterns, fatigue, fear of movement, joint stiffness and weakness. Occupational therapy can help clients learn how to carry out daily activities without making their pain worse. This allows our clients to return to the activities and roles that are important to them.

It is not uncommon for those with chronic pain to experience frequent loss of balance or falls. Fear of falling can often cause individuals to limit their physical activity to avoid the chance of falling. Occupational therapy works to identify all the things that could be putting an individual at risk for falls and how they can prevent them in the future.

It is also important to consider how chronic pain affects the emotional health, relationships, and motivation of those experiencing chronic pain. Occupational therapy can help individuals identify how these changes could be affecting their overall function. OT can teach individuals coping strategies that will allow them to better manage their pain and resulting stress.

The occupational therapy staff at PCET believe that each individual should have the knowledge and training to better manage their own conditions. Occupational therapy provides training based on each client’s specific needs. The mission of the PCET occupational therapy staff is to help individuals with chronic pain return to living their lives.