Rehabilitation

This article was originally written for Medbridge and is shared here with permission. People who suffer brain injuries require extensive medical care to preserve vital organ functions and prevent secondary injury. Physical therapists are in a unique position to positively influence the ultimate outcome for these individuals by simply providing early mobilization. Two studies provide support for early...

Although integrated into pediatric clinical practice for the last decade, body weight supported treadmill training (BWSTT) continues to be an area of research interest and an evolving intervention. We can see this reflected in a recent study examining effective motor learning strategies for treadmill training. For children with disabilities, the treadmill is a safe place where they can organize their...

Because good clinical evidence on the benefits of gait training is so scarce, we celebrate every contribution we find. Here’s one that specifically explores the effect of dynamic gait training on a child with a spinal cord injury. After sustaining a complete T10 spinal cord injury (SCI) at 23 months old, this child began a walking program six months later. She initially started with a posterior...

Long-term disability is a frequent sequel of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and takes the form of persisting motor impairments that impact walking and autonomous movement. So to improve environmental negotiation and basic care skills, independent gait is an essential therapy goal for TBI patients.    Literature shows that the best time for independent gait recovery occurs within the first few...

Gait rehabilitation uses both body weight supported treadmill training and over-ground training to help a client reach their maximum walking potential. With no established clinical indications, choosing between the approaches is a research-based and experience-based decision which factors in the nature of a client’s injury, timing and scope of intervention and projected outcomes. Here are two recent...

Improving gait parameters is a primary goal of therapy intervention. One of these parameters is gait speed because we know there is a link between how fast we walk and how well we interact with our surroundings. (Just notice how frustrated your aging parents become as their gait slows them down.) Simply put, refining gait through therapy ultimately improves speed and boosts quality of life. There are a...

A recent study at Cleveland Clinic, a leading rehabilitation provider, found that patients participating in early mobility routines after neurological injury recovered quicker and went home earlier than those receiving standard care. NPR recently ran an excellent segment on this study providing good detail and anecdotes from the researchers illustrating how early mobilization is improving the...

As therapists working in acute care and rehab well know, safe patient handling (SPH) is becoming a widely accepted discipline. Advocating the use of lifts and additional equipment for patient transfers and gait training routines, the safe patient handling movement seeks to eliminate all unnecessary manual handling of patients. This is because statistics have clearly shown that work-related musculoskeletal...

There has been a great deal of interest in recent years in the study of plasticity in the nervous system. Plasticity simply means the capacity of the central nervous system to adapt and change. Changes in the structure and function of the nervous system accompany improvements in motor skills that happen with learning and with rehabilitation after neurological damage. Although much of the work on neural...

Since introducing our XL Pacer, TRAM, and E-Pacer we have been introduced to a growing body of clinicians who are active in early mobility, a practice that is becoming increasingly accepted and implemented in ICUs across the country. There is growing evidence showing that the provision of early ambulation support to critically ill and injured patients results in more favorable recovery outcomes as...