What Spinal Cord Injury Patients Can Accomplish with Physical therapy

Sports injuries and car accidents, among other injuries, can cause spinal cord injury.  The range of spinal cord injury is wide.  Some of these injuries are fairly minor and will heal well with a limited amount of physical therapy, while others need physical therapy for the rest of their lives.

As always with physical therapy, the first step is evaluation.  A plan is formulated that will include therapies specific to the kind of spinal cord injury the patient has.  Neck injuries can cause quadriplegia, which requires special treatments.

An important issue in spinal cord injury is the level of the damage.  If a physical therapy program is not followed faithfully, the spine will begin to atrophy below the level of the spinal cord injury.  The spine will shrink and the whole body below that point will become weaker as time goes by.

It is important that spinal cord injury patients get exercise of some form.  They are prone to osteoporosis and heart problems, among other conditions.  If there is a total lack of exercise, these risk factors become even more pronounced.

Physical therapy for spinal cord injury involves exercising and stimulating the nerves and muscles below the level of the damage.  This will allow patients with spinal cord injury to stay in good physical condition where they can.  That way, if a cure becomes available, they will not be too weakened to benefit from it.

Every exercise the physical therapy personnel go through with the spinal cord injury patient should be video-taped.  This allows work to go on at home with an example of each exercise.  Range-of-motion exercises are done by a caregiver, who moves the limbs so that they will not become set in one position.

For spinal cord injury patients who are not quadriplegics, there is physical therapy using mats.  These mats are raised off the floor, and can be operated by a hand crank or a power system.  The physiotherapist will give exercises where the patient lies on the side, back, or stomach and works out or sits up and works out.

There are many restorative therapies in physical therapy for spinal cord injury patients.  These include electrical stimulation, biofeedback, vibrational therapy, laser therapy and other stimulation activities.  Aqua therapy is also a physical therapy method that is conducive to progress in spinal cord injury patients.

With all these therapies, spinal cord injury patients can sometimes restore themselves to earlier functioning.  Other times, they can simply keep their bodies from deteriorating as they wait for a cure.

Spinal cord injury research is being conducted constantly.  Physical therapy is one of the fields that are being explored.  One study is putting spinal cord injury patients in harnesses over treadmills stimulating walking.  They are trying to find a way to help people walk again who had given up hope of doing so.

Physical therapy gives hope for spinal cord injury patients.  It allows them to have the most normal functioning that they are currently able to have.  Perhaps when a cure comes outcomes will be even better.  However, physical therapy will probably always be needed for spinal cord injury patients.