Possible Injuries

If your ribs hurt after a car accident, you’re likely suffering from one of two injuries: bruised ribs or broken ribs.

These are some of the most common injuries after a collision, and they usually occur if your chest suffers severe impact during the crash. Maybe you smashed into the steering wheel or dashboard, or maybe your seatbelt put significant pressure on your chest and ribcage as you slammed on the breaks.

Signs and Symptoms

Bruised and broken ribs have very similar symptoms, including the following:

• Tenderness and swearing around the injured area
• Pain when you breathe, cough, laugh or sneeze
• Pain when pressure is applied to the chest
• Muscles spasms in the chest

If you suffer from any of these symptoms, it is important to visit the doctor and get checked out right away. Remember, your ribcage protects your most vital organs – like your heart and lungs – and chest trauma can lead to very serious injury. Visit the doctor right away if you experience these symptoms after a car accident to check for your risk of injuries like a ruptured spleen, trauma to the blood vessels, or pneumothorax (a collapsed lung).

How To Heal: Everett Spine & Rehab

Unfortunately, a bruised or broken rib does not heal very quickly. Typically, it will take four to six weeks before your ribs will heal properly. Your doctor will likely tell you to ice the painful area, take over-the-counter pain medication if necessary, and get plenty of rest in the meantime.

However, going to a chiropractor or physical therapist can help you recover from your injuries a little faster. Your chiropractor might suggest exercises like lateral twists, swimming, or even deep breathing, which can help you maintain some level of activity and stay healthy while you wait for your body to heal naturally.

Of course, it is best to consult with your Everett chiropractor or Everett physical therapist, to make sure you don’t push yourself too far and hurt yourself even more. After a car accident (or any other significant injury), slow and steady is the way to recovery – and your chiropractor can help guarantee your safety as you get better.

Ability to Get Back to Normal

A study published in Medicine (Baltimore) showed that a 4-week inpatient interdisciplinary program of physical therapy, occupational therapy, psychotherapy, and strength/endurance training helped car accident victims in many areas of life in the months that followed. The patients were able to increase their working hours from 0 at the onset of the injury to 21 hours a week after 6 months and 30 hours a week after 60 months. These patients were also less likely to “catastrophize” and ranked themselves lower on the pain scale.

Addressing “Invisible” Injuries

Of the injury-causing collisions that happened in the US during the last year data was available, 31.4% were rear-ending crashes. These types of crashes are notorious for causing whiplash, which is an injury to the soft tissue of the neck typically caused by a sudden overextension. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, whiplash symptoms can occur immediately after the trauma, or they can set in many days later. For this reason, many car accident victims have “invisible” injuries. They might look healthy and well to the people around them and even to themselves for a few days. Physical therapy can help address the underlying issues that might not be obvious to the onlooker. Range of motion exercises through a therapy program can help address stiffness and prevent chronic headaches and neck pain.

Preventing Chronic/Long-Term Pain

Physical therapy can prevent long term pain later on. A study out of Japan showed that a physical therapy program given to Whiplash Affective Disorder patients with indefinite pain reduced their symptoms by 80 percent. On average, they initially reported 13.1 symptoms, which decreased to only two at discharge.

Lessening the Need for Certain Surgeries

The need for certain surgeries to address lower back pain can be eliminated with physical therapy. While spinal stenosis is not usually caused by trauma, something like a car accident can make underlying cases come to light. A study conducted by Harvard followed a group of patients who underwent physical therapy for their low back pain and a group who underwent surgery. Two years after the beginning of therapy or surgery, both groups had made equal progress in pain and physical function.

Reducing Need for Pain Medication

Physical therapy can help minimize necessary dosages of pain medication. In a study conducted on pain management in trauma, researchers found that a routine of physical therapy could reduce a patient’s need for opioids. Since most injured car accident victims have to take medication of some kind, physical therapy could play a huge role in preventing reliance/addiction to these medications.

If you are looking for non-invasive treatment for your car accident injury, please contact us. We are located in Everett, near Lynnwood, Marysville and Mill Creek.

Sources:

Ahmadi, A., Bazargan-Hejazi, S., Heidari Zadie, Z., Euasobhon, P., Ketumarn, P., Karbasfrushan, A., Amini-Saman, J., & Mohammadi, R. (2016). Pain management in trauma: A review study. Journal of injury & violence research, 8(2), 89–98. https://doi.org/10.5249/jivr.v8i2.707

Haiduk, P., Benz, T., Lehmann, S., Gysi-Klaus, F., Aeschlimann, A., Michel, B. A., & Angst, F. (2017). Interdisciplinary rehabilitation after whiplash injury: An observational prospective 5 years outcome study. Medicine, 96(9), e6113. https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000006113

Matsui, T., Iwata, M., Endo, Y. et al. Effect of intensive inpatient physical therapy on whole-body indefinite symptoms in patients with whiplash-associated disorders. BMC Musculoskelet Disord 20, 251 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12891-019-2621-1

Howard, L., M.D. (2020, June 17). Physical therapy as good as surgery and less risky for one type of lower back pain. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/physical-therapy-as-good-as-surgery-and-less-risky-for-one-type-of-lower-back-pain-201504097863

National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration. (2018). National Statistics. Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/tsftables/National%20Statistics.pdf

Whiplash Information Page. (2019, March 27). Retrieved December 04, 2020, from https://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/all-disorders/whiplash-information-page

If you’ve suffered from a fall at work, for example, the result may be a sprain, dislocated shoulder, broken bones, head injury, hip fracture, or spinal injury. Obviously, no two injuries are the same, and the same goes with their respective treatment plans. One thing for sure is that you’ll want to be able to move and work as freely as you did before your injury.

You’ve heard about “work conditioning” but what exactly is it? Work conditioning (sometimes referred to as “work hardening”) is a specific type of injury rehabilitation phase that helps you get ready to return to work. Of course, with physical therapy in general, the goal is to improve your mobility, strength, endurance and range of motion (as well as to prevent re-injury). During the work conditioning part of rehab, the therapist will create customized exercises for you that mimic your job duties so your body can become reaccustomed to those specific functions (so you safely transition back to work and perform your job as you did before). Consider it like you’re in a workplace simulation for your specific job.

Who can benefit from work conditioning?

• Police
• Firefighters
• Health care professionals
• Truck drivers
• Mechanics
• Construction workers

The amount of sessions and how long those session will be, will be determined by your physical therapist. First thing’s first, however—if you’ve suffered a work injury, seek immediate medical help! When your doctor thinks you’re ready for physical rehabilitation, please come see us! Everett Physical Therapy at 927 18^th St. SW Suite B in Everett.

How’s it done, exactly? At Everett Spine and Rehab, we use a multi-modal approach. Depending on your specific case, we would integrate chiropractic, massage, and naturopathic techniques. This is a treatment plan customized just for you.

With that in mind, you can see how physical therapy can be beneficial for people with and without injuries (think prevention). However, in our practice it is common to treat patients who have suffered some kind of injury, be it from a car accident, workplace accident or from sports. In this article, we take a look at the common injuries that benefit from physical therapy.

• Achilles tendonitis
• Arthritis
• Brain injury
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Cerebral palsy
• Concussion
• Cystic fibrosis
• Dislocations
• Golfer’s elbow
• Herniated discs
• Lower back pain
• Neck pain
• Runner’s knee
• Sciatica
• Shin splints
• Sprained/strained ankle
• Swollen muscles
• Tennis elbow
• Torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament)

If you’re looking to recovery from an injury so you can “get back to normal,” or would like to reduce pain, increase mobility and strength and balance, please call us to schedule an appointment at (425) 347-8614.