Physical and rehabilitation medicine

Physiatry

Physiatry, or physical and rehabilitation medicine, is a medical discipline that brings together a number of medical disciplines and also connects medicine with other scientific fields. A specialist doctor working in this field is called a physiatrist, or a specialist in physical and rehabilitation medicine.

Ordinacija s anatomskim modelom kostura u Poliklinici Faktor Zdravlje

At a glance

Specialist doctor
A physiatrist is a medical doctor specialising in physical and rehabilitation medicine.
The patient as a whole
A physiatrist sees the patient as a whole, together with their family, friends and work environment.
Diagnostics and procedures
Electrodiagnostics, musculoskeletal and vascular ultrasound, and joint injections.
Team leader
The physiatrist leads the rehabilitation team and the treatment process.

What does a physiatrist do?

First and foremost, a physiatrist is a medical doctor who knows the universal principles of medicine and has been trained to pass on all their medical knowledge to society and to the individual patient through examination, diagnosis and treatment.

A physiatrist sees the patient as a whole in all their aspects, both physical and psychological, and at the patient's interaction with their environment – family, friends and work – so as to enable the person to take part as fully as possible in everyday activities despite their difficulties, and to reduce or remove those difficulties. Physical medicine and rehabilitation is the modern queen of medicine, just as athletics is the queen of sports. A physiatrist uses and performs diagnostic and therapeutic procedures such as electrodiagnostics, musculoskeletal and vascular ultrasound and joint injections, and also has at their disposal all diagnostic procedures, from X-rays, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and skeletal scintigraphy to laboratory methods and diagnostics.

Foundations and cooperation with other specialties

Physical and rehabilitation medicine is founded on anatomy, kinesiology and biomechanics, so that it can reduce and eliminate pain and dysfunction using therapeutic exercise, physical and chemical modalities, medicines and natural healing factors. Physiatry – physical medicine and rehabilitation – working with rheumatologists, cardiologists, neurologists, traumatologists, orthopaedic surgeons, paediatricians, endocrinologists, neurosurgeons, family doctors and many other medical specialties and branches, enables a person to return to everyday activities. The physiatrist is the leader of the rehabilitation team: with their full and comprehensive medical knowledge, they lead and manage the treatment process in rehabilitation for conditions of any origin.

Physical medicine

Physiotherapy

Rehabilitation

Areas of physiatry

Systemic disorders in physiatry
Diseases and conditions affecting several organ systems are common in physiatry; such diseases can affect several joints, several muscles and muscle groups. They are usually the result of involvement of the brain and spinal cord – that is, neurological diseases, conditions after a stroke, or traumatic events such as road accidents.
Regional disorders in physiatry
If you have pain in several joints or muscles – for example pain in the whole arm, pain in the leg, or pain spreading from the neck to the shoulder – you have a regional disorder, which can have many causes. Physiatric conditions that, in addition to a local disorder, transmit or refer pain to another area of the body or another organ system are called regional disorders.
Local disorders in physiatry
Some of the most common diseases in medicine are physiatric conditions – diseases of the musculoskeletal system that affect one part of the body. Whether they affect function or cause pain, they significantly disrupt our lives: heel pain, knee pain, pain in a limited part of the spine.

Diagnostics in physiatry

General diagnostics in physiatry
Physiatric diagnostics include complex clinical, laboratory, electrophysiological and imaging tests that reveal the causes of pain and limited function. Early recognition of functional disorders of the musculoskeletal system is essential so that the physiatrist can steer rehabilitation towards the earliest possible recovery.
Trunk diagnostics
The trunk, as the central part of the body, is examined in physiatric diagnostics, especially in diseases and disorders of the spine and in thoracic, abdominal and pelvic pathology. Bony and neurological structures often overlap in their clinical presentations and transmit pain from the internal organs – the heart, lungs, and abdominal and pelvic organs.
Limb diagnostics
The limbs make movement and complex actions possible and are exposed to traumatic injuries and overuse syndromes, and degenerative and inflammatory changes can also develop over a lifetime. Clinical examinations of the musculoskeletal system are complemented by ultrasound and other necessary diagnostic tests.

Physiatrists at the polyclinic

Dr Šime Mijić
specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation, rheumatology subspecialist
Harvard Medical School · Charité Berlin · member of the American College of Rheumatology
Dr Dejan Miščević
specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation, rheumatology subspecialist
member of the ISPRM (International Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine)
Dr Ivan Novak
specialty trainee in physical medicine and rehabilitation
Harvard Medical School · Leeds · Milan · Vienna · member of the ISPRM