Out of all medical aids, there’s almost nothing like braces. Braces have a long-standing medical use and are an amazing way to heal minor injuries such as splints, breaks, and sprains.
And, if you search just a little, you can find the best braces online fairly easy. But before you click the link and buy any braces, let’s examine what braces are in the first place.
Braces
Braces are useful aids for treating acute injuries, chronic conditions, and preventions of injuries as well. What makes them so popular is the reports and studies derived from the experience of use, ease of use, as well as low cost of the braces.
Also, they are very functional when it comes to treating the mentioned conditions. With relative ease, they make the isolated body part functional, ease the pain, and make the body part more effective.
There are a bunch of places to use the braces on. But, most notable are neck braces, wrist braces, knee braces, back braces, ankle braces, and custom-cast braces.
Neck Braces
Neck braces are the least common type of braces since they have a very specific reason for use. They are used mostly when the neck is seriously injured and you need to either keep the neck intact or it’s in the process of healing.
In any case, it’s the most similar to the television depiction of braces, and it’s that thing that characters carry around their neck. When you use it, it’s going to help you stabilize the neck, make it stronger, and return to the form prior to the injury.
Yet, unlike other injuries on the list, it’s going to be utilized when the injury is already serious, and prevention isn’t an option. At least, it’s not in the sense of how other braces are used for prevention.
Wrist Braces
A wrist brace is used to provide flexible support or immobilize a joint, helping those who are suffering from chronic conditions and acute sprains. When it comes to chronic condition treatment wrist braces help with arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and tendonitis.
The main function of wrist braces is to relieve the stress from a few points on the wrist. As a treatment area, wrists tend to be complicated since you have to split the treatment between rest and physical therapy.
But, before you start the physical therapy, you want to relieve as much stress as possible from the wrist. Therefore, if there’s a smaller injury involved a flexible support brace would suffice.
Yet, for greater injuries, there’s a need for immobilizing wrist braces, which are often made of metal and other harder materials. Still, wrist braces don’t have half of the variety that knee braces have.
Knee Braces
Knee braces are the most advanced and versatile of all braces. There are a bunch of different knee braces to treat different conditions, acute or chronic.
However, the three main uses of knee braces are for treating varus osteoarthritis, anterior knee pain, and to immobilize the knee. Yet, if you were to get into more details, you could say that there are a few types of braces.
These are prophylactic braces, which are designed to protect the knees during contact sports. Functional braces that give support to the already injured knee. Rehabilitative braces that limit harmful knee movement while the knee is healing. Patellofemoral braces that help the kneecap move smoothly over the knee joint.
They can be either premade or custom made. It all depends on the type of injury and the seriousness of the injury. With knee braces, it’s most important to find out what type of injury you have. Then, the braces are most effective.
Back Braces
Back braces have a very simple goal. They are designed to protect the lower back and reduce the stress from the joints and muscles of the lower back.
This purpose is achieved by restricting end-of-range spinal movements while providing stability and support during movement. To get into a more scientific explanation, back braces serve to treat lumbar orthosis, lumbar-sacral orthosis, thoracic-lumbar-sacral orthosis.
The back braces help to facilitate healing following an injury to the spine or soft tissue, healing following a surgical procedure on the spine or related soft tissue, reduce the pain by restraining mobility of the trunk, and to support weak back muscles or deformed spine.
Back braces are rather important for treating back injuries. And, most of the times after back surgery, back braces are going to be used in post-operative treatment.
Ankle Braces
Finally, ankle braces are the most common type of braces. A lot of light injuries can be diagnosed as an ankle sprain. Depending on patient tenderness, the sign of ankle sprain could be anything from bruising, inflammation, swelling, inability to move, joint looseness, laxity, and instability. The Ankle Sprain Recovery Time can vary depending on the severity of the injury. Generally, mild to moderate sprains can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks to heal completely. More severe sprains may take several months to fully recover.
The purpose of ankle braces is to stabilize and support the ankle, as well as to limit the range of motion of the ankle. Yet, unlike other braces, ankle braces are used even when there is an immediate sprain of the ankle joint.
They are used in sports to immobilize the joint and prevent the pain during the activity. Additionally, knee braces can help you to alleviate various pains related to ankle joint. Also, they provide protective support by giving you lateral and medial stability. And, almost all ankle braces are made from neoprene and nylon.
Custom-Cast Braces
Also, there are custom-cast braces. These are special braces that are custom made to support a patient’s body. They are mostly employed when there are broken bones, but could be used to help out with other injures as well.
Custom-cast braces are made from various materials depending on the type of injury. But, most injuries can be treated with regular braces. Custom-cast is employed only on special occasions or per doctor’s request.
And, that sums up the type of braces.
Prevention Helps Your Health In the Long Run
Whatever you do, make sure to check with your doctor first whether or not you can use braces. If you can, then you are in luck.
First, it means that you can remove your health problem fairly easily. Then, you have an affordable solution to your health problem. That’s a thing to be happy about.
