Physiotherapy

Definition

Physiotherapy is a profession of health and a clinical science. Use the movement to strengthen, maintain, or restore the patient’s functional abilities.

Physiotherapy is the therapy of the human gesture (kinêsis means “movement” in Greek). He therefore uses the movement or, on the contrary, corrects and reduces it, with different techniques and / or by the application of a restraint system, in order to restore an impaired function of the body. For example, the physiotherapist allows the patient to resume the use of a hand after a reconstruction operation or at least to teach him how to adapt to his new pathology or to teach an amputated patient to walk with a prosthesis.

Physiotherapy means movement therapy. As a result, the physiotherapist uses many techniques to re-educate the movement and posture of his patients. It is therefore both muscular and articular.

One of the main acts of physiotherapy is the manual therapy, that is to say the solicitation of tissues (muscles, tendons or subcutaneous tissues) of the patient by means of various manual techniques among which we can find the massage . Physiotherapy also uses different physical means (heat, cold, electric currents, ultrasound, infrared, tecar therapy, shock waves, …).

Physiotherapy also covers the techniques of respiratory physiotherapy for infants with bronchiolitis, for example, to help maintain volume and declutter. But also the realization of elastic restraints (strapping), flexible (support arm, bandage elbow to the body) or rigid (corset for immobilization of the spine).

This discipline includes the rehabilitation of almost all medical conditions. This profession belongs to the body of rehabilitators such as speech therapists, occupational therapists, neuropsychologists, psychomotor therapists and orthoptists.

The physiotherapist

The physiotherapist has a university scientific training which allows him to bring to Luxembourg the official title of masseur graduated in physiotherapy. He practices in close collaboration with other health professionals.

The physiotherapist has the knowledge and skills necessary to provide quality treatment in the therapeutic field, but also intervenes in the areas of well-being, prevention, recreation, fitness and aesthetics. Always ready to be informed of news and latest developments of the year, the physiotherapist is regularly updated with continuing education in Luxembourg or abroad.

The physiotherapist helps you solve your problems, recover your physical abilities and resume an active life by offering solutions tailored to your needs.

Activities

The activity of the physiotherapist includes:

  • Massages, including manual lymphatic drainage and pressure therapy
  • Respiratory physiotherapy of adults and children
  • Posture, musculotendinous stretching and joint mobilization, excluding forcing, including vertebral manipulation and osteopathic osteopathic bone movement reductions
  • Muscular construction (sports or post-traumatic)
  • The creation and application of flexible, adhesive or non-adhesive restrictions, temporary rehabilitation devices and postural devices
  • Sensory-motor rehabilitation (more specifically for neurological disorders)
  • Rehabilitation of equilibrium disorders (neuro-vestibular rehabilitation)
  • Neuromuscular relaxation

The different physiotherapy techniques:

  • Electrotherapy: direct current (or galvanic current), galvanization, drug dielectrolysis, the choice of the drug is the exclusive responsibility of the prescriber and the current analgesic and excitatory stimulations;
  • Use of mechanical waves (infrasound, sound vibrations, ultrasound);
  • Use of electromagnetic waves (short waves, centimetric waves, infrared waves, ultraviolet rays)
  • Thermotherapy and cryotherapy, excluding any procedure that may cause damage to skin appendages
  • Kinebalneotherapy and hydrotherapy
  • Rehabilitation of the perineum, bladder and sphincter

The meso-kinesitherapy techniques are carried out following one or more evaluations carried out by the masseur-physiotherapist, also called BDK, in order to establish a physiotherapeutic diagnosis in order to adapt the techniques to the needs of the patient.

The general role played by the physiotherapist has been reinforced in modern perioperative techniques such as rapid recovery after orthopedic surgery, but also visceral, thus allowing the preparation and early mobilization of the patient, key elements of his return to optimized autonomy.