At Energize physical therapy, we focus on 4 main categories: pain, flexibility, range of motion, and strength. Impairments in any one of those categories can affect balance.

1. Pain – This creates avoidance and leads you to compensate motions.
2. Flexibility – Tight muscle groups hold you back from ability to perform full range.
3. Range-of-motion – Stiffness in a joint can prevent you from performing full motion of a joint.
4. Strength – Weakness will prevent you from generating force necessary for daily functions.

In an ideal world, to improve balance, you would want to improve on all 4 areas. You can’t have good balance if you don’t have strength in your legs. You can’t have good balance if you have arthritis in your painful knee joints.  If you don’t have good enough flexibility, you won’t have good enough balance, either.

Unstable medical conditions can also lead to a decrease in balance. Dizziness, high/low blood pressure, medications, surgery- all of these can have an affect on your balance. We would never ask you to stop taking any medications. At the same time, we would certainly take these into consideration when we are working with you.

If you feel that you might have a balance issues, give us a call to see if you are the right candidate for physical therapy.