Monica is a P.E. teacher and an all-around fan of sports. She’s the kind of person that can’t just stand still: she fidgets around all the time, like a runner at the starting line waiting for the whistle to be blown.

Given her connection to sports, Monica had already had physical therapy a few times. She is a knowledgeable user of physical therapy, for good and for bad. When she hurt her shoulder in a car accident and had to undergo surgery, she knew what she was up to.

From disbelief to relief

After surgery, Monica was in a lot of pain and she had to hold her arm still. “The physical therapy center was a few miles away from home, and I would never step into the bus or the subway with my arm hurting like that.”

Then her doctor told her about Sword Digital Therapist. “At first I found it odd: I was used to conventional physical therapy, so I thought an approach like this could never work. But then I tried it and I figured it was really cool.” Monica says that the most significant difference for her is the fact that she is continuously monitored, “the evolution is completely different.” Furthermore, she quickly understood that the exercises she had to perform brought some relief to her pain. “Sometimes I couldn’t sleep because of the pain, so I got up at ungodly hours and started exercising(...) The best part of my day was the therapy; it actually relieved my pain.”

Laughing her way through recovery

Monica has just finished her program. The first thing she asks about when we visit her for this interview is the physical therapists that accompanied her during her time with the Digital Therapist: “How are they doing? I have to invite them over for dinner.”

Her relationship with the physical therapists that monitored her recovery was unique. Monica took the Digital Therapist with her on vacations and sent over pictures of her performing the exercises by the pool. At a certain point, one of her prescribed exercises required her to lift weights. She once used a bottle of wine as a weight and sent a picture to her mildly astonished but utterly amused physical therapists.

Life is slowly going back to normal. Monica has just rejoined her indoor football team, and she went back to walking her huge, lively dogs. She’s catching up with her life. Her initial expectations for the Digital Therapist were quite low: “I thought I was just going to play with a tablet.”

Her opinion about it has changed a lot in the past few weeks: “This is unlike anything I have ever tried. And believe me, I should know, I have tried everything."

Read about other members’ healing journeys with Sword Health:

• Cindy: From Hopeless to Healing
• Brian: From Advisor to Patient to Advocate
• Jose: I Sometimes Even Answered Back to the Digital Therapist
• Joel: Race to Relief

Interested in how Sword can help you find freedom from pain? Check if you're eligible through your employer or health plan.