Most people think that recovering after an accident or serious injury is only about physical healing, but that isn’t the case. Yes it is true that the primary part of your recovery will be physical. Perhaps you tore a muscle or broke a bone. Maybe you strained ligaments or damaged cartilage in your knee. Any of these physical injuries will certainly require a large amount of physical healing. This type of healing will be painful and will require you to go through some form of therapy in order to reclaim your mobility or independence.
What most people forget is the mental aspect of being seriously injured. When someone is seriously injured they can also become mentally scarred from the incident. Perhaps it was a car accident or maybe you were mugged, maybe you slipped and fell, or were playing sports and got injured. No matter how it happened, if it created a serious physical injury to you, you’ve likely developed a mental injury as well. That mental injury will have to be worked on, just like a physical injury is. When you visit a physiotherapist, they’ve been trained to work on all aspects of an injury, including the mental.
Here are some ideas to consider when working on the mental part of your injuries.
Getting Yourself Back into Good Physical Shape
When you recover from your injury or accident, you will have to engage in physical therapy in order to heal properly. Physical therapists use a range of therapies to help an injury heal, increase a patient’s strength or improve a damaged muscle, ligament, or joints range of motion. One of the core therapies that they use is Clinical Pilates.
This whole body fitness regimen focuses on building up a patient’s core strength so that their balance and coordination are improved. With this as a base, the therapist can then work on the specific injured area. Clinical Pilates helps a patient to heal physically and it also has a positive mental effect on patients. A core part of the discipline is mental focus and strengthening. Therefore, Clinical Pilates assist with both the physical and mental repair of injuries.
Gaining Your Confidence Back
Often when someone has a serious accident, they find themselves mentally crippled. If they were in a car accident, they might find it difficult to get back into a car. If it was a sports accident, they might not have the courage to play the game anymore. Those who have been badly injured must be able to get over whatever has occurred and understand that the likelihood of it happening again is usually small and improbable.
Depending on the personality of the injured person this may be a major challenge. Some people have a very difficult time letting go of incidents that occur in their lives. However it is imperative that these things are let go and they move on, or this type of fear will spill into other areas of their lives. If they cannot do this on their own a therapist can be called in to assist.
The mental part of healing can be more difficult than the physical part because you cannot see the injuries. Because of this just as much focus needs to be paid to the mental part of healing as is done with the physical.