If you’ve ever sustained car accident injuries, you know that recovering can be timely and difficult. You may feel fine at first, then notice new symptoms popping up over time. Finding the right doctors to treat an injury can be even tougher. Car accident orthopedic care specializes in the treatment of musculoskeletal systems, which are often most affected by auto accident injuries.
The information below explains why making an appointment at an Atlanta orthopedic clinic is your best option to diagnose and treat any injuries you may have sustained during an accident, helping you keep a bad situation from getting any worse. We also created this checklist to answer the question, «what to do after a car accident.»
Orthopedic Care Helps Properly Diagnose Your Injury
Finding the problem, including the type, location, and severity of an injury, is essential to proper treatment. This can be difficult if you have vague symptoms or if your symptoms do not show up immediately following your auto accident. Orthopedic care uses advanced tools to make an exact diagnosis, including X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans.
General practitioners will often miss details of an injury or fail to find it all together. This is not because they are inept, but instead, because they do not have specialized training in this type of care. Not finding the problem could mean being stuck with an injury that isn’t covered by insurance after the accident, since your time to claim your injuries is limited by law. Getting the right orthopedic care will make sure injuries are found and treated, plus in most cases, covered.
Orthopedic Care Treats Soft Tissue Damage
Soft tissue damage, which can affect the muscles, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage, makes orthopedic care necessary. Damage to soft tissue is harder to track and quantify than broken bones, yet the effects can be just as debilitating. This type of damage can ruin your quality of life, make simple tasks insurmountable, and even make it to where you struggle to work and support your family.
Soft tissue damage happens in many accidents and is commonly associated, but not limited to, injuries dealing with the neck and back. Orthopedic treatment addresses soft tissue damage so that patients can fully recover. The sooner you can begin your orthopedic regimen, the sooner you can get back to life the way you knew it.
Orthopedic Care Addresses Delayed Pain
Even if you walk away from the accident feeling fine, it’s common to have pain unexpectedly flair up hours, days, or even weeks later. Part of this is because of the body’s production of endorphins right after an accident, which helps to hide the pain and deal with stress. This means you may feel perfectly fine the moment the accident is over, but notice symptoms creep up over the next few days or weeks.
Some symptoms, such as muscle soreness, are quite common. The problem is, they show up whether you have a full injury or even if you just braced yourself before impact. A one-time visit to a general practitioner creates a risk of undiagnosed injuries. Orthopedic clinics have the advanced technology required to identify and address delayed pain.
Orthopedic Treatment Provides Long-Term Care
Orthopedic care is for the duration that the injury affects the patient. It is a treatment plan that is ongoing until you are to the point of having relief from the symptoms that now plague your life. A visit to the doctor might just be a one-time thing, sometimes including medication to temporarily mask the injury.
It takes time to recover from accident injuries. Often, it takes more time than these medications are able to be given since they are only meant as temporary relief, not something to provide a cure. That’s why orthopedic care takes place over a period of time with multiple visits, monitoring patient progress all the way to a complete recovery. This makes orthopedic care a lasting solution to injury.
Types of Treatment You May Experience During Orthopedic Care
When your soft tissue gets damaged, there are many different options that we can present you with to help ease the pain and allow you to recover. Some of these include physical therapy, chiropractic care, spinal decompression, cold laser therapy, and more. Each of these treatment options brings about a different type of relief and recovery. What type of treatments you may receive depend on the part of your body that hurts, and what your specific injury entails. We will make sure that we cater the treatments you need to your specific injury. That way, you have the best possible chances of a full recovery once our treatment plan is complete.
AICA Orthopedics is Atlanta’s premier accident and injury center. With our integrated system of orthopedic doctors, chiropractors, and physical therapists, you can be sure that you are getting the best care possible – all in one place. Treatment of injured areas is enhanced with our cutting-edge MRI, X-ray, and CT scan diagnostic machines. With the right staff and resources for care, ACIA Orthopedics walk with you down the road to a complete recovery. If you’ve been in a car accident, don’t delay – give our Atlanta orthopedic doctors a call today at (404) 855-2141.
