AI Overview

• A physiotherapy session has four parts: a detailed conversation about your symptoms, a physical assessment, hands-on treatment, and a home programme you take away with you.
• First appointments at Franklin Chiropractic Dubai typically run 45 to 60 minutes, longer than follow-up sessions, so the assessment is done properly before any treatment starts.
• Treatment usually combines manual therapy, prescribed exercise and, where appropriate, electrotherapy such as ultrasound, TENS, interferential current or shockwave.
• Most people are treated on the same day as their assessment rather than being sent home to wait.
• No doctor’s referral is needed to book physiotherapy at Franklin Chiropractic Dubai in Jumeirah Lake Towers, although some insurers ask for one before they will cover treatment.

This guide walks through a session exactly as it runs at our physiotherapy center in Dubai, from the moment you sit down to the point where you leave with a plan. No mystery, no clinical jargon, just what actually happens and why each part matters.

What Happens in a Physiotherapy Session?

A physiotherapy session is an assessment followed by treatment. Your physiotherapist takes a detailed history of your symptoms, examines how your body moves and where it is restricted, treats the problem using hands-on techniques and prescribed exercise, then gives you specific work to do between appointments.

The proportions shift as you progress. Your first appointment is weighted heavily towards assessment, because nothing useful can be treated until the cause is understood. Later sessions are weighted towards treatment and progression, with a shorter reassessment at the start to check what has changed since you were last in.

Part One: The Conversation Before Anyone Touches You

Your session begins with a conversation, and it is longer than most people expect. This is not small talk. The history your physiotherapist takes is genuine diagnostic work, and in a lot of musculoskeletal cases it narrows the problem down before a single physical test is performed.

Expect questions along these lines:

• Where exactly is the pain, and does it travel anywhere else?
• When did it start, and was there a specific incident or did it build gradually?
• What makes it worse, and what settles it down?
• How is it affecting your sleep, your work and your training?
• Have you had this before, and what was done about it then?
• What medication are you taking, and what other medical conditions do you have?

That last question matters more than people realise. Part of a physiotherapist’s job is recognising when a problem is not musculoskeletal at all and needs a doctor’s review instead. Being straightforward here saves time and keeps you safe.

Part Two: The Physical Assessment

Next your physiotherapist looks at how you actually move. You will usually be asked to stand, walk, bend, reach or squat while they observe posture, range of motion, and where the movement breaks down or gets guarded.

The examination typically includes:

• Range of motion testing: how far a joint moves, in which directions, and at what point symptoms appear.
• Strength testing: resisted movements to identify weakness, often in muscles well away from the painful area.
• Palpation: hands-on examination of joints, muscles and soft tissue to locate the restricted or irritated structures.
• Special tests: specific clinical tests relevant to your presentation, used to confirm or rule out particular structures.
• Functional movement: the movement that actually provokes your problem, whether that is a golf swing, a desk position or lifting a toddler.

By the end of this, your physiotherapist should be able to explain what they think is happening in plain language. If that explanation does not come, ask for it. Understanding your own problem is part of the treatment, not an optional extra.

Part Three: Treatment on the Day

One of the most common questions we get is whether the first appointment is assessment only. At our clinic it is not. In the majority of cases you are assessed and treated in the same visit, so you leave having had something done rather than simply having been examined.

What treatment involves depends entirely on the findings, and usually combines several of the following:

• Manual therapy: joint mobilisation, soft tissue work and hands-on release techniques applied to the structures identified in the assessment.
• Exercise prescription: specific loading and control exercises, started in the session so your technique can be corrected while someone is watching.
• Electrotherapy: modalities such as interferential current, TENS or therapeutic ultrasound, used to support pain relief and tissue repair.
• Shockwave therapy: used for stubborn tendon problems that have not responded to loading alone.
• Dry needling and taping: applied where clinically indicated to manage trigger points or support a joint between sessions.
• Education: what to avoid, what to keep doing, and how to modify your desk setup or training load.

You should be told what is being done and why before it happens, and you can decline any technique you are not comfortable with. Consent is ongoing, not something signed once at reception.

Part Four: The Home Programme and Your Next Steps

The last few minutes of the session are where the results are decided. Hands-on treatment creates a window of improvement. What you do in the days between appointments determines whether that improvement holds.

You should leave with three things: a small number of specific exercises with clear sets and repetitions, guidance on what to modify in daily life, and an honest estimate of how many sessions your recovery is likely to take. Two or three exercises done consistently beat a list of ten that never gets opened.

How Long Is a Physiotherapy Session?

Initial appointments are deliberately longer than follow-ups, because a rushed assessment produces a poor treatment plan. Here is how the two compare at our clinic in Jumeirah Lake Towers.

What to Wear and What to Bring

Wear something you can move in and that gives access to the area being treated. Shorts for knee, hip or lower back problems. A vest or loose top for necks and shoulders. Trainers if the issue involves walking, running or balance, so your gait can be assessed properly.

Bring any scans, reports or surgical notes you already have, along with a list of your current medication and your insurance details. If you have a smartwatch or training app tracking your load, that data is genuinely useful for anyone treating a running or gym-related injury.

Will a Physiotherapy Session Hurt?

Parts of the assessment may reproduce your symptoms, and that is intentional. Your physiotherapist needs to find the movement or structure that provokes the problem in order to treat it.

Treatment itself should sit within what you can tolerate. Manual therapy on an irritable joint or tight tissue can feel uncomfortable during the technique and mildly sore afterwards, usually settling within a day or so. Sharp, worsening or lasting pain is not part of the process. Say so during the session and the technique or dosage gets adjusted.

How Many Sessions Will You Need?

This depends on the condition, and any clinic that quotes a number before assessing you is guessing. As a general guide, acute problems such as a recent sprain often settle in three to five sessions. Most musculoskeletal conditions improve noticeably within six to ten. Rehabilitation after surgery usually requires twelve or more.

You should get an honest estimate at the end of your first appointment, and it should be revised as you progress. If you are several sessions in with nothing changing, that is a conversation to have rather than a reason to keep booking.

What a Session at Franklin Looks Like

Our physiotherapy team works inside a multidisciplinary practice in Gold Tower, Jumeirah Lake Towers, alongside our chiropractors and acupuncturists under DHA License No. 0002437.

Chloé Hoeben is a neuromusculoskeletal physiotherapist with more than twenty years of experience in acute and chronic injury management and preoperative and postoperative rehabilitation. She holds a BSc in Physiotherapy from the University of Cape Town and an MSc in Neuromusculoskeletal Physiotherapy from the University of Stellenbosch, and her treatment includes manual therapy, joint mobilisation, dry needling, taping and Pilates-based rehabilitation.

Donnabelle Gabio is a licensed physiotherapist registered with the Dubai Health Authority and the Philippine Regulatory Commission, with a background as a senior physiotherapist in hospital musculoskeletal and post-surgical care. She works extensively with the neck and lower back problems that come with long hours at a desk, which describes a significant share of the working population in Dubai.

The practical advantage of being assessed inside a multidisciplinary clinic is simple. If your assessment points to something better managed by a chiropractor, or worth combining with another treatment offered at our physiotherapy clinic in Dubai, that conversation happens in the same building rather than through a referral across the city.

Frequently Asked Questions About Physiotherapy Sessions