Did you Know...Excel Physical Therapy Offers Aquatic Therapy!
Young or old, aquatic therapy may benefit you. The pool is the best arena for clients who are experiencing pain from a variety of conditions. Water is the only three dimensional treatment table, allowing exercise and treatment to occur over multiple body parts at once. Exercise in the pool allows for muscles to be stretched and strengthened with less pain, creating an excellent option to initiate rehabilitation efforts early following injury or surgery. Our 94th and J Street location offers warm water physical therapy. The pool temperature is set at a comfortable 94 degrees. This is very beneficial to the patient in promoting a relaxing, therapeutic environment. If therapy on land is painful, the pool is the place to start your return to normal, pain-free function.
Benefits of aquatic therapy include:
Bouyancy: Patients with significant pain are often unable to perform many land-based exercises without exacerbating the pain. However, in a buoyant, gravity-reduced environment like water, gentle movements to improve strength, flexibility, and endurance are possible. Buoyancy can provide either assistance or resistance to movement of the body in water based on how you position and use the body. It can also produce a decrease in splinting or guarding of antigravity muscles, an increase in freedom of movement and decrease in joint stress.
Weight Reduction: In chest deep water, the patient’s weight produces less spinal and lower joint compression than the identical exercise performed on land. When the patient’s weight is reduced, walking produces less shock to the spine, allowing the patient to have increased activity without pain.
Hydrostatic Pressure: Increases in the pressure on the outside of an immersed body resulting in: a reduction of edema in the lower extremities, an offset of blood pooling in the lower extremities, a desensitizing effect and slowing of the heart rate during exercise in the water.
Water Viscosity: Provides three-dimensional resistance to both agonist and antagonist muscle groups. The resistance in a viscous environment is experienced throughout the entire length of the moving arm. This decreases the amount of torque experienced at the proximal joint.
Protection: Unstable patients that are at an increased fall risk on land are not likely to be injured in the pool because any loss of balance would result in contact with water.
Examples of pool exercises:
Many movements that are part of pool therapy for patients look similar to stretching or resistance exercises conducted on land, with the exception that they use the gentle resistance of water rather than gravity to exercise muscles or joints. A few of the more popular exercises are:
1. Stretching-of the hamstrings, quadriceps and lower back.
2. Strengthening-Resistive arm and leg exercises to include the use of foam
barbells to complete exercise activity against water resistance.
3. Walking forward, backward, and sideways with tools to add resistance.
4. Advanced functional and core strengthening exercises.
5. Sport specific movements.
All therapy sessions are one-on-one in order to assess each phase of treatment and guide the patient through a safe and steady progression. There are several types of conditions and injuries that would benefit from aquatic therapy. The following list is a sample of the types of patients that would be appropriate for aquatic intervention:
-Post Surgical Conditions
-Weakness
-Degenerative Changes
-Weight Bearing Difficulties
-Poor Aerobic Fitness
-Poor Balance Reactions
-Gait Training
-Sprains and Strains
-Limited Range of Motion or Mobility
-Neurological Conditions
-Pregnancy
-Respiratory Weakness
What to bring on your first visit:
Feel free to come fully dressed in your street clothes. We offer separate men’s and women’s changing rooms, complete with showers and lockers. Please bring your swim attire and a towel. If you are feeling modest, shorts and a t-shirt are appropriate.
We look forward to working with you!
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