When a person suffers an injury or a debilitating disease, he often has to relearn walk. This process is called gait training. A physical therapist becomes a guide and a resource for the person relearning do basic movements.
The physical therapist can use many different techniques and tools to help patients quickly and safely recover their mobility.
Strength Training
Stronger muscles, especially in the lower limbs, can help patients recovering from an injury or coping with a disease to improve their gait. In a study published in Minerva Medica, a peer-reviewed medical journal, researchers found that progressive resistance training helps improve muscle strength and tone as well as gait.
You can do progressive resistance training in many ways, so it is easy to customize a program to your specific needs and abilities. You can use free weights, resistance bands, body-weight exercises like squats and push-ups, and exercise machines.
Traditional Therapies
Improving muscle strength is at the core of most physical therapy programs, but therapists also augment strength training with exercises to help the muscles recover their ability to move in certain specific ways.
In the clinical setting, a physical therapist will develop exercises that help the patient practice walking. The parallel bars play a key role, allowing patients to support themselves using their upper body strength while actively walking. The parallel bars allow patients to gradually put more and more weight on their legs as they recover their ability to walk.
Locomotor therapy is another effective, traditional technique. This type of therapy works to get patients moving in more realistic circumstances. Walking on a treadmill is a common locomotor therapy. Research conducted at Northwestern University shows that patients who progress from standard clinical physical therapy to locomotor therapy recover their walking ability more completely than those who don't undergo additional therapy outside the clinic.
High-Tech Devices
Newer devices combine electrical stimulation or sensory input with traditional gait therapy techniques to produce even better results.
The GaitAid is one such device. It works using virtual technology to provide sensory feedback to patients with gait disorders. Sounds and visual images help the patients make greater neurological connections with proper movements and can dramatically improve gait and balance issues.
Other high-tech devices use electrical stimulation to help the lower extremities relearn basic movements.
Tags: recover their, help patients, physical therapist, basic movements, electrical stimulation