The best answer to put a number on this amount has to come through thinking through three main factors.
- How Long Have I Had The Condition, Not The Pain?
- What Is The Severity Of My Condition?
- How Many Birthdays Have I Had?
- What's My Diagnosis? You will likely not answer this, and a consultation is paramount!
I have that physiotherapy-related demographic, medical history and severity answers - What Now?
Once you have those answers about condition severity and your body history in your head, you should know the averages are around ten sessions from most acute complaints (this is a typical base amount given by most medical insurance policies to conform with this average). These ten sessions are often covered over anything from 4 weeks up to 2 months. These numbers are based on physiological healing rates for wounds plus muscle & coordination adaptations.
Most insurance companies will cover these ten treatment sessions for a particular condition within a year, which might be a good number to start with if you're contemplating self-funded physiotherapy care. While some heal a bit quicker, some heal slower, so remember this is just an average.
Of course, the average client may take longer or shorter than this is the physiotherapy condition we treat in Wimbledon is acute, with moderate severity.
Can you do care with Fewer sessions?
Yes and no: This 10-session plan is not necessarily what happens when we talk about the number of sessions as an average. In some cases, the clients' value for care means there are only willing to invest a certain amount into their body's health.
And in other cases, There isn't enough time to complete a recommended care plan. This may happen when the injury is felted or induced close to an athletic event, or it may be that treatment time is over a holiday, i.e. skiing holiday. Long and short, the more face time you have with a practitioner, the better the effect.
The Physiotherapist & The Builder:
If you think about your physical therapist as a builder working on a house with walls with missing bricks, would you be happy if they only replaced half the bricks?
While the house would be more stable & warmer than before, your exposure to the elements may make you feel the lesson is the job as complete as possible.
Sadly the human body is usually a summation of all the things it has been exposed to, and if it is exposed to less treatment, you may expect that the results may be less profound, and the risk of injury occurrence may be more likely. While we don't force clients into Complete Care, we recommend it. The client should also consider the averages and base their care frequency expectations around that.
Expectation management:
Healing will take 4 to 8 weeks to heal, and the intervention of treatment inside that period means that the wound healing is often better than if left alone.
Sadly, however, this is just for wounds (factures, muscle rips, the tendon pulls, ankle twists etc.) and doesn't accommodate muscle re-education post-injury, which might take a further six weeks or sometimes up to 12 months depending on the severity of the damage or length of time the client has been immobilised.
This doesn't mean pain won't diminish quicker however, in fact, pain should reduce quite quickly with care - typically 2-3 weeks until the client feels a pain reduction of 30 - 80% reduction.
In short, the answer to the question ‘How many Physiotherapy sessions will I need?’ It should be ten on average for adequate or complete care on a standard or single condition, with pain relief felt throughout care.
You should expect around 30-40% relief within the first third of the program. This may be seen as a pain change or shift instead of an instant pain drop, i.e. where muscles reactivating sensation replaces acute joint inflammation.
We offer care plans to help coach your body back into a realised and revived state while reducing some of the investment costs associated with your body's care. Please check out https://www.wimbledonclinicphysio.co.uk/prices-payments to find out more.