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Have you ever had an ankle sprain? The American Academy of
Orthopaedic Surgeons estimates that 25,000 experience an ankle sprain
each day. Read below for tips on how to best deal with an Ankle sprain
if it happens to you.
Balance and Strengthening for Ankle Sprain
When you sprain an ankle, often the last thing you want to do is move it for any reason.
Resting and applying ice are the traditional remedies, however your
physiotherapist may be able to help you get back to your usual self
faster with some quick exercises early on. You may find that the
experience is actually less painful than just letting it heal on its
own.
Early Intervention Helps
It’s tempting to
just try to wait out the injury and only seek out physiotherapy if the
pain persists. It’s very common for emergency rooms or doctors to simply
send patients with acute sprains home, asking them to ice it and keep
it immobile. While this works for many people and is appropriate in the
the early stages of recovery, nearly a third continue to have pain or
other symptoms long after the injury. In fact, sprains seem to cause
about 13% of all cases of arthritis that arise from an injury, so the
effects of avoiding treatment early on can be quite long lasting.
A study of those receiving a consultation and treatment with a
physiotherapist right after the sprain and those simply self-treating at
home after the initial emergency treatment found that those who
underwent physiotherapy, regardless of the exact treatment plan, had
much better recovery after six weeks and three months: they returned to
work faster, they had better range of motion, their balance was better,
and they had much less pain.
Physiotherapy Can Help You Hurt Less – Faster
You
may find that you are hesitant to begin physiotherapy right after an
injury because you are afraid of hurting yourself further. However, a
study examining the traditional method of resting, icing, bandaging, and
elevating an ankle after a sprain compared with treatment of a sprain
with physiotherapy found that while both groups recovered as expected,
the group undergoing physiotherapy used less pain medication during
those first few difficult days to manage the healing process. The
authors concluded that the exercises, while possibly uncomfortable at
the time, may have made for a less painful recovery overall.
What to Expect
One of the biggest benefits of
having a physiotherapist evaluate your ankle sprain and prescribe
treatment is that the balance between immobilizing a joint after injury
and getting back into physical activity is very delicate, and getting
that timing right will mean a quicker, fuller recovery. Although every
treatment plan is different, typically your physiotherapist will have
you keep the ankle still for a short time to get the swelling down, but
then will work on rehab exercises such as range of motion, strength, and
balance, with you soon after.
An Ounce of Prevention
The best part about
receiving proper care from your physiotherapist is not just that you’ll
feel better faster, it’s that the right balance and strengthening
program can actually help you prevent future sprains. Multiple studies
have shown that the incidence of ankle sprains decreases notably when
athletes undergo regular balance training, and the benefit was most
pronounced for those who had sustained a sprain in the past.
Physiotherapy
interventions early in the stages of recovery for an ankle sprain can
help you get back on your feet more quickly, with less pain along the
way, and help you prevent a future injury of the same type. For
prevention work or for treatment of an acute ankle sprain, contact your
physiotherapist to determine an appropriate treatment plan.
Read more in our Ankle Sprain and Instability patient guide.
