After a surgery or a treatment, you may be told to go to physical therapy. This is a sort of therapeutic exercise and muscle manipulation program that is supposed to help you to gain the use of any muscles that were damaged or tampered with during an injury or surgery. By attending physical therapy as prescribed, many men and women have been able to regain full use of a limb or a muscle that was extremely injured.

Most of the time, those who are attending physical therapy injured an arm, leg, neck, or shoulder. Physical therapy is typically a combination of treatments like massages and heating pads and exercises which are supposed to help the victim regain use of the muscles that are being targeted.

While most of the time physical therapy can be helpful and rehabilitating, there are instances when it can actually be damaging. A poorly trained physical therapist may push a patient too far, damaging muscles rather than strengthening them. Some physical therapists may do an excellent job in repairing the physical dysfunction that was being targeted, but in the process may cause the patient discomfort in another area of their body.

For example, a woman may come to the physical therapy room needing to target a shoulder which is recovering from surgery. While a physical therapist helps this patient to fix her shoulder, the exercises that she requires of the patient may strain the patients' neck. This in turn may cause the patient to pinch a nerve and be in even greater pain than before. This would be an example of a malpractice situation. The patient may even be able to sue the physical therapist for foolishly causing her so much injury and costing her thousands in medical bills to get the problem corrected.

When you are attending physical therapy, you have every right to expect that you will be regaining mobility, flexibility and strength from an injury or from extended convalescence. Men and women who have a cast removed, or have been in a wheelchair for months, can use physical therapy to slowly encourage their limbs to function normally again. Physical therapists are sometimes maligned, but it is often because the process is painful.

Because all participants in physical therapy are awake during treatment, they can be fully aware of what the therapist is doing. If you observe a physical therapist practicing malpractice then you may want to contact an attorney. There are times that physical therapists who are trying to be innovative and creative may try new, unapproved tactics on their patients. This can become an issue, especially if the patient does not respond well to the exercise or treatment. As well, physical therapists may give massages and be too rough with a very sensitive patient.

There are also instances of sexual abuse in physical therapy. Some therapists may be sexually inappropriate with their patients, which is always grounds for a lawsuit. Whether you have been pushed too hard physically and suffered injury, or the therapist heightened the extent of you injuries rather than helping you, you need a medical malpractice attorney on your side to help you litigate.

Depending on your situation, you may be able to sue the physical therapy facility as whole or the specific therapist who caused you harm. You can discuss your options with a persona injury attorney as soon as possible and choose whether or not you deserve compensation for your injuries. You will want to collect medical records and discuss your case as soon as possible as time can be a factor in these sorts of claims.