Physical Medicine in Chicago

During the course of your chiropractic care, we will incorporate strength training and physical medicine in order to boost the healing and repair that your body is doing on its own. Below are a few of the types of physical medicine we incorporate at our Lakeview, Chicago office.

Electrical Muscle Stimulation

We often refer to this as "muscle stim" in our office. This therapy involves low levels of electrical impulses delivered to the injured tissues or areas of pain, in order to reduce pain and speed up healing. It most often feels like an electrical massage, as the electro-therapy pads stimulate the body to increase circulation and release endorphins, which are your body's natural pain relievers. We apply this therapy to decrease pain and inflammation, and it also speeds up your body's natural healing processes.

Ultrasound

When most people hear the word 'ultrasound', they usually think of diagnostic ultrasound, often used in prenatal screening. We use ultrasound therapy that utilizes sound waves to treat injured muscles, joints, and soft tissues. The sound waves vibrate the tissues back and forth at the cellular level, thus creating a micro-massage effect, which helps to increase local circulation. Increasing circulation in an area of injury basically increases the food and supplies your body needs to repair that area. In the case of a recent injury, this helps to decrease scar tissue, which would otherwise interfere with the body's healing process. The sound waves decrease inflammation by destroying unwanted inflammatory cells. These are like the people in an emergency who just run around flailing their arms around. Therapeutic ultrasound also accelerates healing by stimulating the activity of the cells responsible for cellular and tissue repair.

Rehabilitative Therapy & Strength Training

After your body begins to heal, we will then strengthen it in order to reduce your chances or re-injury and to improve your overall wellness. Strength training is the use of resistance to build the strength, endurance and the size of skeletal muscles. This helps to secure the spine and joints in place once correction begins. There are many different methods of strength training, and the types that we incorporate in our office consist of the use of Therabands, exercise balls, stretching, and free weights. The exercise program is developed by Dr. Peter Georgiou, who is a Certified Chiropractic Sports Physician (C.C.S.P.)

​​​​​​​When properly performed, strength training can provide significant functional benefits and improvement in overall health and well-being. This includes increased bone, muscle, tendon, and ligament strength, improved joint function, reduced the potential for injury, improved cardiac function and elevated good cholesterol and metabolism. By incorporating rehabilitative strength training and physical therapy in our office, it gives us an opportunity to lay the foundation of proper form and pace. This is essential to your success with a regime such as this. Once we go over the basics with you, you will then be fully prepared to continue your exercise and strength training program at home or in the gym. Whether you're an athlete, an amateur, or a weekend warrior, it is important to make sure that your muscles are not only strong enough to handle the motions that you perform during the course of a normal day but that you are also moving them in the proper way. If you're interested in beginning your rehabilitative strength training regime, you may request an appointment here or give our office a call at 7736654400.