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The physiotherapist is expert on the human movement machine. He or she treats patients that are restricted in their movements in their daily lives. There are about 22.000 physiotherapists in The Netherlands who are working in independent clinics, health clinics, hospitals, rehabilitation centres, nursing homes and -more often- within companies.
The physiotherapist treats individuals or groups of patiƫnts, often after a doctor has referred them. The treatment can, among other things, include rehabilitation and massage therapy. Besides the treatment the physiotherapist also uses his expertise for precautionary purposes. For example for the improvement of the movement functioning, maintaining it and to prevent new symptoms. Sometimes he will guide patients in learning how to live with a disability and for example to help them to start working again.
You can visit the physiotherapist without getting a doctor's referral first. If it's necessary the physiotherapist can refer patiƫnts back to their family doctor or a specialist.
Within our clinic, the focus of the physiotherapeutic treatment is to make sure that the patient him/herself is working actively on his or her recovery. In general patients will be given a training program and there will be information attached to explain the purpose of the exercises. If necessary, forms of passive therapy will be used. As soon as the injury allows it, it is time for action: active working on the own recovery, active practicing and active changing the home- or work situation to the injury.
The balance between load and load-tolerance from an individual play a central part in our approach. Load is the amount of power that works on a certain moment on the body. A healthy amount of load is necessary to function optimal. Load-tolerance is the amount of physical strain/exertion the body can tolerate during a certain period. Underload (not exercising enough) can keep injuries in the same state or even cause injuries, but more load than the load-tolerance can handle, can also create injuries. In our clinic, the patient will learn to restore the load/loadtolerance-balance him/herself. Of course, the patient will be supervised and coached during this process. We devote a lot of attention towards education. After all, it is very important that the patient understands the background of the injury, so that we can learn how to deal with the injury in a better way. Furthermore, the patient learns what he or she can do about the injury him- or herself and how he or she can take precautionary measures to prevent problems.
All physiotherapists working in our clinic (Liliane Mandema, Hans Koning, Brigitte Mooij, David Turenhout, Friso Postma and Merijn Schepers) are registrered in the "qualityregister" of the Koninklijk Nederlands Genootschap voor Fysiotherpie, the KNGF.
The clinic provides physiotherapeutic services to e.g.: