Quick answer
A scan changes physiotherapy treatment far less often than patients expect. Imaging is worth arranging when there are red-flag symptoms, progressive weakness, a suspected fracture, or no improvement after six weeks of appropriate treatment. Otherwise it commonly finds age-related changes that are present in people with no pain at all.
Patients arrive at physiotherapy holding a scan report far more often than they arrive without one, and a good share of those scans did not need to be done. This page is about when imaging genuinely helps, because that is a more useful thing to know than a list of machines.
When a scan is worth doing
- Red-flag symptoms — saddle numbness, bladder or bowel changes, weakness in both legs
- Weakness that is getting worse rather than settling
- A suspected fracture, or an injury from a significant fall
- No meaningful improvement after six weeks of appropriate treatment
- Before surgery, where the surgeon needs it to plan
- Unexplained weight loss, fever, or night pain unrelated to position
When it usually is not
For ordinary back pain, neck pain and joint pain in the first weeks, imaging rarely changes what should happen next — and it carries a specific cost that is easy to underestimate. Scans of people with no pain at all routinely show disc bulges, degeneration and arthritic change, and those findings become more common with age in everybody. Being told at forty-five that you have "the spine of a seventy-year-old" makes people stop doing the very things that would have helped.
A finding on a scan is meaningful when it lines up with your symptoms and your examination. On its own, it is a photograph of ageing.
How imaging is arranged
Our physiotherapy units run inside multi-speciality hospitals and nursing homes in West and South West Delhi, most of which have their own imaging departments. Where a scan is genuinely indicated we will tell you, explain what we are looking for, and point you to where it can be done — often in the same building as your appointment.
The referral itself has to come from a doctor. Physiotherapists in India do not order imaging, and any practice telling you otherwise is worth a second look.
Bring the report and the images to your next appointment. The report is one radiologist's reading; the pictures and your examination together are what actually decide the plan.
Not sure where to start?
Book an assessment. A physiotherapist will examine you, explain what is going on, and tell you honestly whether treatment will help before you commit to a course.
Book an assessment