Acupuncture
Acupuncture is a modality of Traditional East Asian Medicine, used in the prevention, treatment, and repair of chronic pain conditions
At Agile Occupational Medicine, we pride ourselves in utilizing acupuncture as an integrative medical treatment that does more than manage pain. It is an evidence-based medical system that offers solutions for complex conditions. Acupuncture is a safe and effective way to improve a patient’s functional capacity, reduce “flare-ups” of pain and dysfunction, and support the patient in getting back to work after an industrial injury or trauma.
Acupuncture is a form of treatment that has been practiced for more than 2,500 years. The therapeutic process involves inserting very thin needles through a person’s skin at specific points on the body, to various depths.
Acupuncture increases and restores blood flow to the affected areas of the body to promote the healing process. It activates the brain through nerve pathways triggering the release of internal chemicals, such as endorphins and enkephalins, which have remarkable pain-relieving properties. It reduces inflammation, relaxes the nervous & muscular system, and regulates the body’s hormonal and immune systems.
Acupuncture has been used to treat a wide variety of conditions including:
Chronic & Acute Pain
Joint and Muscle Stiffness
Stress, Anxiety & Insomnia
Workplace Injuries
Digestive Issues
Migraines & Headaches
Allergies & Respiratory Conditions
Frequently asked questions
Does acupuncture hurt?
Acupuncture needles are extremely thin, smaller than a cat whisker. Treatment is rarely painful but may produce a unique sensation that Chinese medicine calls "De Qi" described as a heavy, achy pressure.
Where do you place the needles?
Acupuncturists use a comprehensive system to diagnose and treat patients using Traditional East Asian Medicine. The use of local and/or distal needling which is not necessarily at the site of the pain or problem can be utilized. Most points used are in the arms, legs, head, and belly. Each acupuncture session is curated to the patient’s individual diagnosis and treatment plan needs, established by their medical team.
What to expect.
Plan on being in the office about an hour (15-20 minutes with the doctor acupuncturist and 25-30 minutes to rest with needles in place). You may also receive other hands on manual therapy, exercise therapy, diet and nutrition instruction, and post treatment care instruction. Usually, a series of treatments are necessary to resolve a condition. Conditions which are acute in nature can take anywhere from 6 – 10 treatments while more chronic cases can take around 4 – 6 months of treatment. Once restored back to health, regular maintenance treatments once or twice a month are recommended for everyone seeking a long healthy life. You can return to work and other daily activities post treatment.
Remember to eat a light meal/snack at least 30min to 1 hour after your session, stay away from caffeine and or other stimulants.
Acupunture Clinics
Let Agile evaluate your companies therapy services needs.
Contact Agile today for a no-obligation, free quote on setting up a therapy services program for your company. Our clinical team will review your requirements, make recomendations and present you with options to ensure your employees stay healthy and safe
More on Physical Therapy programs
Overview
Return-to-Work
Industry Specific
Prevention
Conditioning
Overview
The Agile approach to Physical Therapy
Physical and occupational therapy are a growing expense in the management of workers’ compensation claims. In the event that therapy is a solution to returning the injured employee to work, this provides significant value to all parties. However, if therapy fails to produce functional gains and improved employability it can delay other necessary medical or administrative interventions. The result: added costs fail to provide value to all involved.
Agile's physical therapy clinicians partner with employers and payers to provide value through the right treatment, at the right time, every time.
To do this, we have developed a physical therapy program that measures treatment success based on:
- The worker’s satisfaction as a customer and their abilities based on self-reported functional outcomes.
- Objective functional testing to work tasks at all time points and in all therapy programs throughout recovery.
- Prospective mentoring on individual complex cases through a published proprietary audit process, the Utilization Management System.
- Customer accountability through stewardship reporting that compares Select Medical performance to published benchmarks.
Agile considers all stakeholders in the workers’ compensation system to be partners in the rehabilitation of injured employees. We highly value communication with and accountability from patient to payer, as a key to successful outcomes.
Return-to-Work
Custom return-to-work physical therapy programs
Safe and quick return to work is critical. Through our in-house physical therapy, injured workers progress through therapeutic interventions that include job-related and injury-specific activities. This ensures the worker returns to work capable of performing required or similar tasks. Features include:
- Partnership approach for injured works, health care team members and employers
- Job simulation models for clinical advancement and early return to work
- Acute/sub-acute physical and occupational therapy
- Work conditioning/work hardening
- Comprehensive testing: functional capacity evaluations and functional baseline testing
- Job site analysis
- Ongoing utilization management through electronic, peer-to-peer, real time review
Industry Specific
Industry specific physical therapy programs
We partner with a wide variety of industries to ensure worker safety, minimize the risk of injury and reduce workers’ compensation costs. Industries include:
- Trucking/Transportation
- Oil/Gas Refineries
- Fire department and first responder services
- Health care facilities
- Airline providers
- Warehouse management
- Grocery and food distribution
- Shipyard
- Construction
- Meat packing
- Restaurants
- Municipalities
- School, college and universities
Prevention
Injury prevetion and ergonomic physical therapy programs
Preventing an injury or reducing the severity of an injury are key components to workplace safety. Designed to be integrated into the safety culture of a company, Agile works closely with safety professionals to identify potential risks for injury that may occur and tailor educational programs to promote a safe working environment. Our prevention programs include:
- Early intervention services to reduce severity of injuries before they become OSHA recordable
- Ergonomic evaluations to ensure office workspace safety
- Employee education for on-the-job stretching and wellness strategies
- Onsite services to capture all injury prevention services on location with the employers
Conditioning
Get employees back to work with a conditioning program
When injured workers meet established physical therapy goals but are unable to return to work due to remaining functional deficits or deconditioning, a work hardening or work conditioning program may help. These full body intensive conditioning programs focus on work simulation activities to get injured employees back to work.
Work Hardening: A highly structured, goal-oriented, individualized intervention program. Addresses the issues of productivity, safety, physical tolerances and worker behaviors.
Work Conditioning: Intensive, goal-oriented conditioning program designed to restore strength, power, endurance, joint mobility, range of motion, motor control, cardiovascular endurance and functional abilities. The goal is to restore physical capacity and function to enable the injured worker to return to his or her pre-injury job.