Circulation Treatment for Restless Leg Syndrome

Video Transcript

"Hello my name is Dr. Susan Jewell and on behalf of Expert Village today I'm going to talk to you about how to recognize and treat a condition called Restless Leg Syndrome. Now in this clip we are going to talk about circulation flow to the lower extremities or to your legs and the compression and why that would increase your chances of you getting this particular syndrome. Now first of all let's look at a diagram or the cardiovascular system. Here you can see that this is representing all the arteries and the distribution for the arteries and flow of blood. Then here this blue one is obviously representing the veins or the venal system. But if you look here you can see that the legs are supplied by two major arteries and veins that go to the lower extremities. Now when you are sitting down for long periods of time especially if you are sitting at a computer or a desk at a 9 to 5 job then you are going to be sitting at a right angle so you are going to cause compression at this area here and decreasing the blood flow to the lower extremities and decreasing oxygen and blood flow to the muscles and also causing tension to this area of the body. So when you do that for long periods of time then you are going to increase your chances of getting the Restless Leg Syndrome. So to try to avoid getting the Restless Leg Syndrome or the jumpy legs by sitting at this angle. With sitting at this right angle you are going to cause the blood flow to decrease and also increase muscle compression and pressure in this area. So it is recommended not to sit for long periods of time, you should get up every 20 minutes or so if you are at the office or at a desk and you should actually just loosen your legs, give them a good shake, and give yourself a good stretch and stretch long, that would be good. Also just do exercises just to increase the blood flow like doing a stance like this and some exercise like this and moving up and down, that would actually increase the blood flow to your body. These are some of the things that you could do throughout the day so that it would decrease your chance of restricting blood flow and decrease the symptoms for getting Restless Leg Syndrome."