In the olden days, people look for doctors as the first line of medical help in Singapore for every pain, injury and medical illness. Even for minor muscle pain and aches most people see doctor medications, such as neck pain, back pain, knee pain, and shoulder pain. Physiotherapy was not commonly seen in Singapore previously. As the years by, the awareness of physiotherapist has increased. Now if people have a neck pain, back pain, knee pain, or any muscle, bone or joint problems, the option of physiotherapist comes before seeing doctors.
If someone has a muscle and joint pain or injury, and knows about what physiotherapists can do, mostly of them will find a physiotherapist first. They choose to skip the doctor's medical consultation and make an appointment directly with their physiotherapy services. This helps to heal up the injury and soft tissue damage at a faster rate. However, if they have doubt about the nature of their injury, they should immediately consult a doctor or orthopedics specialist in bone, joint and muscles.
For physiotherapy consultation in Singapore, physiotherapy will assess their conditions by starting with asking questions and advise them what their pain problem is caused by. For mild to moderate cases of muscle strains or ligament sprains, physiotherapy can help to cure it with pain relief treatments and physical therapy. They may also need to wear brace or splint for joint protection and faster healing of muscles. When there is no more pain and recovered, physiotherapist needs to prescribe strengthening exercises so that the tissues will not be injured easily in future. During this healing and recovering phases, doctor's roles to prescribe painkiller medications are not as important as physiotherapist role as pain is not due to muscle tissue injury but muscle weakness.
For more severe cases, the physiotherapy will advise them to see doctor orthopedics specialist. That's where the important doctor's role will come in. They are advised to see doctor reason for further investigations such as like x-ray, MRI scan, blood tests etc. before commencing the physical therapy treatment. The reasons behind is they may need to rule out any severe muscle damage, muscle tear or bone fracture and if surgery is a better option than physiotherapy. Or some people want to find out the accurate diagnosis with investigations why they are continuously having this pain or aches in Xray or MRI report. For certain severe long term pain such as osteoarthritis (an inflammation of a joint), doctors medicine painkiller may help to ease pain and muscle aches.
If you are playing any sports activities such as soccer, rugby or doing any high impact exercises or met with an accident or fall, you sustain severe pain or unable to move, you need to see doctor immediately because this are the cases we need to take x-ray and see if any bone fractures. If it is a soft tissue injury, MRI is needed to rule out the complete muscle or tendon tear. For complete tear of muscles, operation is required to reattach.
After operation in Singapore, orthopedics doctor will refer to physiotherapy for rehabilitation to regain function and strength back to normal daily activities.
The role of doctor and physiotherapist in Singapore are important for the treatment to recovery for patients who have aches and pain.
