Physical Therapy Services
Ankle & Foot Injuries
Rebuilding strength, stability, and balance.
Ankle & Foot Injuries
Ankle and foot injuries can affect your balance, mobility, and daily activities. We assess the cause of your pain and build an individualized rehabilitation plan to help restore strength, stability, and comfortable movement.
How This Works
How ankle and foot injury care works at Omega Physical Therapy
The foot and ankle are the base everything above them stands on, which is why an injury there shows up as changes in balance and walking as well as pain. An evaluation looks at joint range, strength, swelling and balance, and at how you load the foot through a step — because an ankle that has been protected for weeks has usually lost its balance reactions along with its strength.
Treatment at Omega Physical Therapy is one-on-one with Dr. Dmitry Shestakovsky, DPT, who works with ankle and foot injuries. It combines manual and soft-tissue techniques with an individualized rehabilitation plan aimed at restoring strength, stability and comfortable movement, and typically progresses from range and swelling toward balance and weight-bearing loading.
What to Expect
One-on-One Care, Built Around You
The part of ankle rehabilitation people skip is the balance work, and it is usually the part that decides how the ankle behaves six months later.
Evaluation
How the injury happened, what you can currently stand on and walk on, ankle and foot range of motion, strength, swelling, and single-leg balance.
Hands-on treatment
Manual therapy to the ankle and foot joints and soft-tissue work to the calf and foot musculature, targeting the restriction and guarding the assessment found.
Your home program
A staged program covering range of motion, calf and foot strength, and balance and proprioception work, with guidance on footwear and on how much walking and standing to do at this stage.
Follow-up and review
Balance, strength and walking tolerance are rechecked at each visit, and loading is progressed toward the surfaces and activities you actually need.
Benefits
What ankle and foot injury care is used for
Physical therapy is individualized, and what any plan involves depends on your evaluation. These are the situations this kind of care is commonly used to address at our Brooklyn office.
- Addressing ankle and foot injuries that affect balance, mobility and daily activities
- Rebuilding strength, stability and comfortable movement after an injury
- Restoring balance and confidence on the foot after a period of protecting it
- Recurrent ankle problems in people who run, play sport or spend the day on their feet
Common Questions
Ankle & Foot Injuries FAQs
How soon after an ankle injury should I be seen?
Anything involving an inability to bear weight, an obvious deformity or severe swelling should be assessed medically first to rule out a fracture. Beyond that, an evaluation is useful once the acute stage settles — call (718) 996-9929 and describe what happened and the office will advise.
Will the treatment hurt?
Hands-on work on a recently injured ankle can be tender, and balance and loading exercises are meant to be challenging without being painful. The intensity is set to what you can tolerate, so say what you are feeling as it happens.
Do I need a referral from my doctor?
It depends on your insurance plan — some require a physician referral for physical therapy and some do not — and New York State sets its own rules for seeing a physical therapist directly. Rather than guess, call the office at (718) 996-9929 before your first visit with your plan details and we will tell you what yours needs.
What should I bring?
Your insurance card and photo ID, any imaging report or referral, any brace, boot or orthotic you have been given, and the shoes you wear most — including trainers if you run. New-patient forms can be printed and filled in at home beforehand.
Is it covered by my insurance?
Omega Physical Therapy welcomes insurance and will do everything it can to help you receive as many benefits from your plan as possible. Because there are so many different plans and coverage options, the office cannot give a definite answer in advance — a copy of your insurance card is taken at your appointment so your coverage can be estimated. Cash, checks, debit cards and most major credit cards are also accepted. Call (718) 996-9929 with your plan details and the front desk will talk it through with you.
Have a question that is not here? Call (718) 996-9929 and we will answer it.
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