How Aquatic Therapy Helps

Physical rehabilitation is used to help people recover from serious injuries. It can take months or even years to build muscle tissue strength and range of motion, but there is a way to increase training efficiency that is helpful to people of all ages. Performing physical rehabilitation and exercise in water utilizes several principles and has a number of benefits that will speed recovery, boost your muscle performance, and help to reduce acute and chronic pain. Some of the benefits of aquatic therapy might surprise you.

How Aquatic Therapy Helps

Physical rehabilitation is used to help people recover from serious injuries. It can take months or even years to build muscle tissue strength and range of motion, but there is a way to increase training efficiency that is helpful to people of all ages. Performing physical rehabilitation and exercise in water utilizes several principles and has a number of benefits that will speed recovery, boost your muscle performance, and help to reduce acute and chronic pain. Some of the benefits of aquatic therapy might surprise you.

HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE

Hydrostatic Pressure affects the Cardiovascular, Respiratory, and Musculoskeletal System in many positive ways. With respect to the cardiovascular system, the pressure exerted on the body by immersion effects components such as improving circulation by moving fluid centrally, improving heart muscle efficiency, and can even assist in lowering blood pressure for persons who have hypertension (high blood pressure). The impact on the Respiratory System allows for training of muscles responsible for breathing. While immersed the muscles used to inhale are resisted by the water while the muscles used to exhale are assisted. This can assist patients with compromised respiratory systems as well as highly trained athletes. Hydrostatic pressure lastly effects the Musculoskeletal system by, proving gentle compression to joints, relaxation of muscles, decreased swelling in limbs, decreased pain, and the ability for muscles to work at a maximal level in a buoyancy assisted and or a buoyancy resisted environment. Exercising while immersed is isokinetic, meaning that any exercises you do offer the same resistance throughout the entirety of your motion. This allows your muscles to work at their maximum efficiency, however you are anywhere between 30-90% unweighted allowing you to not feel an increased effort while making max strength gains.

PAIN REDUCTION

Pain can limit numerous components of our daily lives. No matter the cause when a part of us is in pain we cannot do the things we would like to or must do. Aqua PT can help with that and more. Our heated, salt water indoor pools provide relaxation and comfort to muscles and joints that may be tight and or painful. The waters natural pressure provides joint compression and can assist in swelling management to decrease limb swelling which will improve motion and decrease overall pain. When immersed to chest level roughly 70% of your body weight is supported. This allows for a feeling of lightness and the ability to use buoyancy assisted and resisted exercises in a pain decreased setting. When the force of gravity and land-based PT is too much Aqua PT can be a great first step in reducing pain and still allowing you to work at a maximal level to achieve your goals. We hand select each program to your specific needs and move at your pace. We have a goal to help you return to land based physical therapy no matter your injury or diagnoses. Our Aquatic Therapist has worked with numerous conditions including but not limited to, surgical procedures, sports injuries, work injuries, concussions, connective tissue disorders, fibromyalgia, and more.

RESISTANCE

While the pool is traditionally used for patients early in their physical therapy protocol and who cannot initially tolerate land based physical therapy do not think you are not working. Using a multitude of different upper body and lower body exercises that incorporate, weights, resistance bands, kickboards, shallow/deep water, and more in various positions of standing and floating will have you working at your peak level. Whether you are working with or against the waters natural buoyancy your muscles will be working just as hard as they would be on land. With the unweighted environment that the water provides it will be a less painful and more soothing experience. There are multiple exercises specific to the pool while also mimicking exercises you would see in land-based PT or as activities you perform day to day. Our physical therapy departments are all interconnected and when you are a patient in our Aquatic PT program our goal is to progress your strength, flexibility, range of motion, and muscle endurance to transition back to our Orthopedic Land Based PT gym or to the Spine Center PT program to achieve all your therapy goals. Aqua PT is the first important step in that journey and our Aqua therapist will formulate a plan that best suits your individual needs and current level.

BALANCE/PROPRIOCEPTIVE

MUSCLE RELAXATION

No matter the cause of your injury muscle tightness can present issues. Your body will naturally “guard” with muscle tightness to protect you from the trauma of surgery, injury etc. And while this can be helpful sometimes muscle tightness and pain add to your inability to do the things you love and make everyday tasks more difficult. The warm water of our pools present instant muscle relaxation as the water dilates blood vessels and allows improvement of circulation to muscles decreasing tightness. This allows you to move more freely through the water, move with a decrease in soreness and pain, and allow you to build strength, range, flexibility, and muscle endurance to assist you when you exit the pool and come back on land. This change is not immediate but when land exercises can be too much and just cause increased muscle soreness and pain the pool can be an amazing medium. Just as exercises can feel easier while immersed so are stretches, this allows the muscle to stretch while in a relaxed state. Your aquatic therapist is well versed in how aggressive to push stretches and strengthening exercises to best suit you and make progress towards your goals. Utilizing the effects of shallow and deep-water Aqua PT can help muscle soreness anywhere in the body.

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Dedham Health Physical Therapy
200 Providence Highway
Dedham, Massachusetts 02026
Phone: (781) 326-8332
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