Can Physiotherapy Help Me After A Vehicle Accident?

If you have unfortunately been involved in a motor vehicle accident and have sustained injuries as a result, physiotherapy treatment is often recommended.

What to expect after your accident?

Your physiotherapist will do an assessment. This includes getting details regarding your accident injuries, where you’re experiencing pain, the impact on your life post-accident, and treatment goals. After this conversation, your physiotherapist will guide you through movements and do tests to determine the best approach to recovery.

What common injuries are experienced after an automobile accident?

Whiplash-AssociatedDisorder (aka WAD): This istypically graded on a 1-3 scale depending on severity.

Strains, Sprains, and Tendinopathy: These typically occur in the shoulder or throughout the neck and back. This refers to injuries to muscles (strains), ligaments (sprains) or tendons (tendinopathy).

Concussions: A concussion is a traumatic brain injury that occurs through forceful impact to the head.

What does treatment look like?

Treatment will vary depending on the injuries that were sustained in the accident. Best evidence states that no matter what your treatment plan looks like, you should be as active as possible in your care. To encourage this, most often there will be home exercises to increase your strength, mobility, and daily activities to prepare you to return to work and hobbies.

In the treatment room there will be varying techniques and referral may be recommended to other practitioners such as osteopaths and massage therapists to focus more on active approaches as mentioned above. These techniques may include:

• Joint mobilizations
• Neural mobilizations
• Range of motion
• Soft tissue techniques
• Supervised strength training

What paperwork is required?

There is a mandatory NS-2 form you will have to sign after your physiotherapist's assessment. This outlines sustained injuries, the impact on your life, the assessment results, the treatment plan and goals. There will be 2 options at the end for you to choose from:

1. Being in protocol
   a) Insurance companies have a predetermined amount of sessions depending on the injuries sustained. However, your primary healthcare provider can request more treatment beyond this limit if required. This is often beneficial for people who do not have an extended health plan or do not want to use it at this time.
2. Being out of protocol
   a) When you select this, you will be required to exhaust your private health plan first and then the insurance company will reimburse any additional session costs. There are some conditions that are automatically out of protocol such as a concussion.

Please give us a call at (902) 425-3775 if you’ve had an accident and want to discuss appropriate treatment options and how they will work for you. You can request a free screening with one of our physiotherapists.