The homo body is synthetic from a multifariousness of tissue types, each of which heals at a different charge per unit and responds differently to various exercises or activities. Information technology is of import to know what type of tissue is compromised when injury occurs, in lodge to accordingly estimate a time frame for healing and to prepare appropriate expectations for rehabilitation. Listed below are the well-nigh commonly injured tissues that nosotros bargain with in concrete therapy, along with a typical healing fourth dimension frame for each. Considerations for rehabilitation for dissimilar tissue types are outlined thereafter. Please continue in heed that these are general guidelines. The body's healing processes tin be affected by a diverseness of factors related to each patient's individual health history and life circumstances. Physical therapists will assistance each patient to brand more personalized estimates for their ain specific timeline for healing and rehabilitation, and will design each patient's therapy handling program to optimize this procedure.

Typical Tissue Healing Time Frames

Tissue types: Range of fourth dimension for healing:
Musculus two-4 weeks
Tendon 4-6 weeks
Bone 6-eight weeks
Ligaments 10-12 weeks
Cartilage ~12 weeks
Nerve 3-4 mm/day

Muscle Healing Considerations:

  • Muscle has a rich claret supply, which is why it is the fastest healing tissue listed above. The circulatory organization provides all tissues with nutrients and oxygen – both of which enable the tissue to heal. Because muscle gets lots of claret period, it has a good environment for healing.
  • Contracting and/or stretching muscles via a variety of specific targeted exercises stimulates blood to flow through the muscle tissue, encouraging health and healing.
  • Injures can occur when musculus imbalances, are present. In these instances, some muscles are stiff and tend to accomplish a disproportionate corporeality of work, at the same time every bit other muscles are weak and/or operate with poor motor control or efficiency. Frequently the strongest muscles are the 'moving' muscles, while the weak muscles are our stabilizing postural muscles. Postural muscles should exist firing constantly to maintain appropriate posture and trunk position. If they terminate firing correctly, the 'moving muscles' endeavour to practise their job. This will somewhen atomic number 82 to pain and injury – sometimes because the 'moving muscles' are overworked and brainstorm to neglect, and other times because the postural muscles' failure to piece of work creates a dysfunctional mechanical situation that stresses the skeletal construction. Correcting muscular imbalances via activities that promote proper motility and muscle recruitment patterns can allow musculus healing to occur.

Tendon Healing Considerations

  • Tendons attach muscles to basic. Tendons generally have a more limited blood supply than muscles. This makes them somewhat slower healing structures in comparison to muscle.
  • Blood supply to injured tendons can be stimulated by activities that cause tension on the tendon tissue. This could mean either tension that occurs when a musculus is contracted, or when information technology is stretched.
  • Tendons tend to respond well to a detail type of tension. Eccentric activity, which means that a tendon is stressed while it is being lengthened, is peculiarly helpful for tendon remodeling later on injury.
  • I case of an eccentric exercise is performing a standing heel raise (pressing upward onto your toes) and then slowly lowering your heels back to the ground. The deliberate, slow lowering towards the ground is eccentric exercise for the Achilles tendon
  • Excessive tension on tendons while they are healing can cause increased hurting, slowed healing, or sometimes even further injury. Physical therapists pattern tendon handling programs with activities that provide gradual increases in tendon stress, and so that the body can progressively adapt to high-intensity tendon activities such as those required in sports or heavy work.

Bone Healing Considerations

  • Bones heal best when loads are applied to them. Weight bearing activities through injured bones stimulates an increase in bone growth at injury sites and a subsequent increment in bone strength. This concept is why immobilizer boots are often used in ankle and pes fractures rather than plaster casts. Allowing patients to walk while protecting their healing os allows the bony repair process to occur faster and more thoroughly than keeping weight entirely off of a fracture site.
  • After a fracture, even if a patient is allowed to behave weight, the injured os should exist immobilized so that the healing procedure tin can occur. Allowing as well much movement at a fracture site too early on in the healing procedure can lead to delays in fracture repair.
  • Initial rehabilitation subsequently a bone fracture ofttimes focuses on normalizing body movement in regions around the fracture site. Promoting general apportionment through aerobic activity and forcefulness training in other body parts tin can help with the bone healing procedure. As a fracture knits and becomes sufficiently stable, rehabilitation activity is focused more than on the torso office that has been fractured.

Ligament Healing Considerations

  • Ligaments attach bones to other bones. They mostly have a more limited blood supply than either muscle or tendon – lengthening their healing time.
  • Talocrural joint sprains and ligamentous tears in the human knee (such every bit an Anterior Cruciate Ligament injury) are 2 common ligament injuries.
  • There are three grades of ligament sprain. Grades are based on the amount of disruption involved to the ligament in an injury, and are divers equally follows:
Grade ane Grade 2 Class three
· Mild sprain

· No swelling, and small hemorrhage (bruising)

 · Moderate sprain

· Small tear

· Significant corporeality of swelling

 · Complete tear

· Low stability (unstable)

· Requires surgery to repair
  • For whatever type of ligament injury, protecting the injury site is important while the tissue is healing. At the same time, motion at the injured articulation is desired, to promote circulation then that healing occurs. In order to let move while protecting ligament, some sort of bracing is often utilized. Concrete therapists also design ligament treatment programs so that the movements made during therapy activities protect the healing tissue.
  • The rehabilitation process after a ligament sprain may be accelerated or slowed depending on the grade of the ligament injury. Treatment plan blueprint afterward ligament injury is individualized and besides modified depending on each patient'due south response to every stage of post-injury care.

Cartilage Healing Considerations

  • Cartilage is avascular, meaning that information technology has no blood supply. The lack of claret circulation in cartilage means that it is a very dull-healing type of tissue. Nutrition to cartilage is maintained by fluid in the joints, which lubricates the tissue. The lubrication process occurs by a sort of flushing machinery, when load is applied and and so removed from the tissue repeatedly. Activities such as stationary cycling and walking that involve repeated smooth joint movement tin can promote this lubrication process without creating also much stress on injured cartilage tissue.
  • Cartilage is too aneural – meaning that it has no nerve supply. Because of the lack of nerve endings, pain is more often than not not felt when cartilage is damaged until it has been worn downwards significantly. Hurting is felt when faulty movement at the injury site has started to bear upon another tissue in the surface area, such as underlying os or associated ligamentous tissue.
  • Inactivity has negative furnishings on joint cartilage. Lack of movement or of weight bearing can cause thinning of cartilage, making it susceptible to injury. Therefore – even fairly immediately after injury – exercises that encourage joints to move throughout their range of move and that involve some caste of load bearing through the joint surfaces assistance cartilage to heal. Increased stresses to healing cartilage tissue then demand to proceed in a very gradual pattern to protect the slowly healing tissue.

Nervus Healing Considerations

  • Fretfulness comport signals from your brain to your muscles, allowing movement. Nerves also comport letters towards the brain, relaying data from muscles, peel, and joints about temperature, pressure level, pain, body position, and body movement. Some nerves are quite long – extending for instance from the base of the spinal cord all the fashion downwards to your toes.
  • In that location are multiple areas in the body where nerves tin can get entrapped or pinched when an injury occurs. Over-stretching a nerve can also cause it to exist injured. An injured nervus can cause pain as well as other symptoms such as numbness, tingling, or muscle weakness. Sometimes nervus tissue is injured but in a modest region. Other times, the effects of an injury can cause bug along the entire length of the nervus.
  • Later a nerve is injured, it is of import to ameliorate the mobility of the nerve and of the other soft tissues around the nerve, to salve pain and too restore a nervus's normal ability to glide in relation to the tissues surrounding it. Normalizing nerve mobility can also better the conduction of messages sent both towards and away from the encephalon.
  • Too much stress on a healing nerve tin can crusade increased hurting and nerve reactivity. Rehabilitation activities targeted towards nervus tissue need to be prescribed carefully – ofttimes in short intervals initially.
  • Nerve healing proceeds at a very dull rate, and tin can be interrupted by repeated overstress. Stimulating nerve repair is a process that requires patience and persistence. However, it is possible to blueprint treatment and exercise programs that allow patients to participate progressively in normal activities while also standing to promote the health of the healing nerve tissue.

Information technology is worthwhile to notation that typically, more than one type of body tissue is involved when the body is affected by injury and/or illness. The virtually effective physical therapy handling and rehabilitation progression will include activities designed to affect each type of involved tissue. The pattern of an advisable treatment program needs to accept into account the relative priorities of a body that is healing, and needs to be continuously modified equally the healing procedure occurs so that each tissue that is healing is provided with its optimal healing stimulus at whatever given time. The same activities that are appropriate initially after an injury are seldom the almost appropriate activities to continue with every bit the healing process evolves.

It is non uncommon for physical therapists to hear that their patients were sent home subsequently initial medical consult mail-injury with a written sail of activities that they were told to work on at home. This was probably (hopefully) a practiced starting point. However, it was besides a very generic, one-size-fits-most place to begin rehabilitation. Regardless of how simple or complex recovery is anticipated to be in any given situation, a physical therapist working as a team with each patient will exist able to provide boosted effective care during the entire grade of a rehabilitation process. Sometimes this might involve only several visits over the course of time. Other times more than intensive or frequent intendance might be indicated. The therapists at Symmetry recommend consulting with your physical therapist any fourth dimension that mobility and daily function are negatively impacted by pain or injury. Getting started on an appropriate program of rehabilitation can considerably speed the procedure of recovery and minimize activity limitations – allowing maintenance of optimal musculoskeletal health.