Physical Therapy to Improve Range of Motion
Whether you engage in activities like sports, gardening, house painting or just lugging groceries around, you have probably experienced restricted range of motion at some time in your life. Suddenly you can't swing a bat, uproot weeds or patch or paint ceilings like you use to. As you use the painful joint less and less often, the muscles around the affected area begin to lose flexibility and your range of motion is impaired even more. Physical therapy, either on your own or with the assistance of a therapist, can increase your range of motion significantly, though surgery is sometimes indicated.
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Range of Motion
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Your "range of motion" is the degree to which you can move joints of your body, like raising your arm to screw in a light bulb or bending your knee to kick a soccer ball. Range of motion is measured by a goniometer, an instrument that measures angles; in this instance, the angles indicate to what degree a joint can move. The pre-therapy measurement will then be compared to post-therapy measurements to gauge the effectiveness of the therapy and the progress made by the patient. Depending on your ability to exercise, one or more physical therapy regimens will be designed: active exercise, assisted exercise or passive exercise.
Active Exercise
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If you are able to exercise without assistance, the physical therapist will give you exercises to either do at home, the gym or in a therapeutic setting. After warming the muscles and joints, you can perform slow gradual stretching exercises to stretch the muscles and improve your range of motion. For example, if you are experiencing a restricted range of motion in your neck, causing pain when you move your head and keeping you from turning your neck completely to one side, you can warm the area up with a heating pad and then turn your head slowly and steadily to the side. Turning your head to just a bit beyond the point of pain each time (as long as the pain does not last after you turn back) will gradually stretch the muscles and increase your range of motion.
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Assisted Exercise
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If you are unable to perform exercises on your own, the physical therapist will assist you in increasing your range of motion. For example, if you have a shoulder injury that restricts your ability to raise your arm without pain, the physical therapist can support your back with one arm and then support your arm with his other hand as you raise your arm slowly and steadily. Over time, you will be able to raise your arm a little higher each time.
Passive Exercise
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If you are unable to move muscles and joints by yourself at all due to a stroke, injury, surgery or disease, the physical therapist will perform the exercises for you manually or with the aid of automated equipment. For example, if you are unable to bend your knee because of post-surgical pain or weakness, the therapist may flex your knee for you, keeping the muscles flexible until you are able to move the limb on your own. People with decreased motion of the neck are sometimes placed into a contraption that looks and acts like a rack. This device (under the guidance of a professional) pulls the head gradually away from the shoulders, then releases the tension, increasing the tension slightly as the session continues, stretching the neck muscles bit by bit.
Cautions
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Restricted range of motion is usually due to tightened muscles resulting from pain. Stretching exercises are indicated to relax the muscle and return the affected part of the body to a full range of motion. In other circumstances, restricted range of motion is due to damage to the joints or connective tissues such as ligaments and tendons. If this is the case, stretching usually will not solve the problem until surgery has corrected the afflicted joints and tissues. Common surgeries of this type are anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery for the knees and rotator cuff surgery for the shoulder. Post-surgical physical therapy is then prescribed.
Physical therapy should never be undertaken without first warming up the muscles. Physically warming the muscles (by slow walking or swimming, for example) or by using a heating pad or warm water immersion will keep already injured muscles from further injury and increase the likelihood that stretching exercises will increase range of motion.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of James Mollison
