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Soft Tissue Injuries Physiotherapy

Soft tissue injuries refer to injuries to our bodies that are "non bony injuries", they are injuries to soft tissues such as our

• muscles
• tendons
• ligaments
• skin
  
• nerve

The most common soft tissue injuries that we see are usually

• ligamental sprains such as ankle sprains, shoulder pulls
  
• muscle strains/contusions such as back muscle strain, calf strain
  
• tendinopathies such as achilles tendinopathy
  
• bursitis
  
• stress-related injuries

These kinds of soft tissue injuries may be common in sports but they do not only happen during sports - these soft tissue injuries happens to the everyday housewife, worker/executive, cooks, children - anyone really.

Soft Tissue Injuries Symptoms

Soft tissue injuries are usually grouped or categorized based on the timeline of injury as well as the healing stages/processes that happen during the timelines.

• Stage 1: Acute Phase (Protection)
  
  This is the earliest stage of the injury ie just after the injury had happened. Patients during this stage can see/experience the most pain, blood and swelling. At this point in time, your body's (and our) goal is to protect your injury from aggravation/more damage.
  
  
• Stage 2: Sub-Acute (Repair)
  
  Once the first stage subsides, your injury will progress to the next stage of sub-acute reparation. Pain and swelling (edema) levels tend to decrease and your body moves from protection mode to repairing the injury.
  
  
• Stage 3: Late Stage (Remodeling)
  
  After 6 - 8 weeks, your soft tissue injury is starting the next phase of maturing but it's in transition, still need to work on strength, stamina, stabilty

Soft Tissue Injuries Physiotherapy

Our specialist senior physiotherapists and hand therapists will be actively providing therapeutic healing modalities at every phase of your post-injury recovery and rehabilitation.

Of course, physiotherapy treatments really depends on the level of severity.

During the early stages, physiotherapy management is more conservative and protective, including:

• RICER approach
• customized splinting/bracing to protect the injury site
  
• cold therapy to decrease inflammation, swelling and pain
• wound healing if required by our senior hand therapists
  
• ultrasound therapy to accelerate soft tissue healing
• if medically allowed, gentle active joint mobilization and manual therapy

Sub-acute and remodelling stage, physiothery may continue the above management modalities with additional:

• scar management
• strengthening
• manual therapy
• heat therapy
  
• stretching and flexibility physiotherapy
• balance training
• core stability training
• sports-specific physiotherapy
• radio-frequency Indiba physiotherapy to further accelerate soft tissue healing

You may be prescribed regular deep tissue release therapy to ensure your muscles and fascia are in optimal health and clinical pilates to prevent future soft tissue injuries.

The biggest problem post soft tissue injuries is truly joint stiffness, and many patients seem to ignore this because it's not as obvious as swelling or blood.

Here's the issue:

Seeing our specialist physiotherapists and hand therapists at every stage of recovery after a soft tissue injury will be vital to provide you and your injury a quick, safe and clinically effective solution to move and prevent adhesions.