Physiotherapy reduces reliance on opioids to manage pain, and exercise rehabilitation reduces pain and disability while improving quality of life for people with musculoskeletal pain.
- Physiotherapy effectively treats and reduces lower back pain, osteoarthritis and other musculoskeletal pain conditions.
- Timely, appropriate access to physiotherapy reduces reliance on publicly funded health care services and on medication.
Assessing and managing pain
Assessment and management of pain is fundamental to physiotherapy practice. There is strong evidence that chronic pain is most effectively managed with non-pharmacological strategies: activity, exercise and mental health support. Despite that evidence, access to these therapies remains a significant barrier for many Canadians living with chronic pain. The combined direct and indirect costs of chronic pain in Canada run between $56 and $60 billion a year — more than the estimated costs of cancer, heart disease and HIV combined.
Pain is complex
Managing and treating chronic pain is not the responsibility of any single profession or any one kind of intervention, pharmacological, psychological or activity-based. The Canadian Pain Task Force, created by the federal government in 2019, continues to advise government on how to respond better to the needs of Canadians living with chronic pain. Increasing funded access to physiotherapists as part of a comprehensive pain management team would strengthen that response.
Physiotherapy in patient-centred primary care
As part of patient-centred primary care, physiotherapy gives patients the resources, knowledge and education they need to manage their pain themselves. Where neither improvement nor even maintenance of functional mobility is a reasonable goal, physiotherapists can still help older people remain comfortable and pain-free. Integrating physiotherapy into the management of acute and chronic pain yields strong health outcomes and reduces costs.
- As part of an interdisciplinary approach, physiotherapy reduces reliance on opioids.
- Patients with musculoskeletal conditions such as arthritis and trauma can reduce or eliminate pain, muscle weakness and loss of stability through physiotherapy assessment and treatment, as an alternative to pain medication.
- Exercise therapy reduces pain and improves activities of daily living in patients with musculoskeletal pain.
- Physiotherapy for low back pain is highly effective at reducing acute and chronic pain, improving physical function, decreasing wait times, promoting a healthier lifestyle and independent living, and limiting the risk of increasing disability.
- Timely care at the community level reduces the burden on the health care system, by reducing the need for medication and for fully publicly funded institutional care.
Living with pain that will not settle? Call LiquidGym at 613-820-8228.