There are many types of therapy used for shoulder pain treatments at our El Paso, Texas locations. Passive and active therapy exercises are the two main types of therapy we offer. At Border Therapy Services, we want to help you understand the difference between these two helpful forms of therapy.
We pride ourselves on helping our patients understand their therapy. A high level of understanding is important for you and for us because the more you know, the better you’re likely to do in your therapy sessions. Therefore, helping you understand your injury and the treatments we prescribe for it may be a major factor in getting you better faster. For this reason, Border Therapy Services in El Paso, Texas wants to help you understand the difference between passive and active therapy exercises in your shoulder pain treatment.
What’s the difference between passive and active shoulder pain treatment exercises
Our team at Border Therapy Services uses a variety of therapies for shoulder pain treatment. Two of the exercise types we commonly include are passive and active exercises. Your shoulder is one of your body’s most complex joints. There are three bones, four tendons and a variety of muscles that make up your shoulder. When one or more of these structures is injured, you may experience some pain.
One therapy method that our team may use to help you fight your shoulder pain is passive exercises. The word passive that’s used for describing these exercises may give you the wrong impression about them. You may think passive means you won’t be moving your shoulder at all during this type of therapy. Our team wants you to know that these exercises will involve shoulder movement.
However, we call these exercises passive because you aren’t the one who is moving your muscles. One of our therapists will move your shoulder through the movements of the exercise while you remain relaxed. Some types of passive exercise we may use in your treatment are joint mobilization and massage.
Another type of therapy exercise we’ll likely use in your shoulder therapy is active exercises. During active exercise, you’ll use your own muscular effort to perform the prescribed movements. One of our therapists will be there to guide your efforts, but they won’t provide any of the muscular effort for the exercises themselves.
One type of active exercise we may use in your treatment is shoulder pulley exercises. We may also provide you with a variety of self-stretches that fall into the active exercise category.
Both types of active and passive exercises include several benefits, such as:
- Decreasing your shoulder pain
- Reducing swelling and inflammation in your shoulder
- Improving circulation in your shoulder
- Decreasing shoulder muscle tension
If you’re ready to get all the benefits that passive and active exercises have to offer, we can help you. Contact us at one of our six El Paso, TX locations today.