Neuro Physio Services

Neuro physio can improve your ability to sit to stand, stand, walk and run.  There are many factors that can affect your ability to walk or balance and these will be assessed to develop a holistic treatment plan.

If balance is your main concern, a detailed assessment of the systems that are involved such as: posture, vision, muscle strength, cardiovascular fitness and reaction times will help to identify the areas that you need to work on.

If dizziness is one of your issues an in-depth vestibular assessment will look at what may be causing this, and treatment tailored to treat it.

An in-depth assessment of your arm and hand function and discussion with you will help to identify the tasks you want to accomplish.  Treatment can then be tailored to you. 

If you have some active movement in your arm and hand there are lots of treatment options that we can explore together, such as:

Constraint Induced movement therapy is one of the most evidenced treatment options we have. It is essentially boot camp for your affected arm, and your non-affected arm is restrained.  This type of treatment works well for highly motivated individuals and for those that have learned non-use of their affected arm.

The Saebo Flex and Saebo Glove: If you find it difficult to complete lots of practice due to spasticity (tightness in your hand), the Saebo flex can allow you to pick up and release balls, allowing for mass practice which will encourage new neural pathways to develop.

The Saebo glove can be useful if you have some mild weakness in your finger extensors that prevent you from opening your hand enough to pick up items.

There are other treatment options that can support active treatment such as mirror therapy, mental imagery, electrical stimulation, sensory rehabilitation, task specific rehabilitation and handwriting therapy.  Some of these adjuncts can also be used for those that unfortunately are unable to access movement in their affected arm. 

For those people that have limited movement in their hand or arm, regular stretches and movement is important to maintain range and prevent loss of movement which may make daily tasks such as washing or dressing difficult.  Together we can ensure you have a maintenance program to ensure you and your family or care team know how best to manage your long term condition as well as looking at ways that tasks could be adapted so that you can still achieve the things you want to.

Fitness is really important for your overall well-being.  There is now a growing body of evidence that demonstrates how cardiovascular fitness can slow the decline in long term neurological conditions.  

 It isn’t always easy to exercise or to fit this into your day but together we can look at ways that you can increase your fitness levels in a way that suits you.

Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) is a treatment that uses the application of small electrical charges to the nerves that supply paralysed or weak muscles. This causes the muscles to contract and achieve movement in a way that is useful to function.  It is most commonly used to help with footdrop and improving gait and preventing falls, but can be used in a variety of ways depending on need.

FES can also be used to help with hand function and shoulder subluxation. 

There are specific contraindication for using this type of treatment and if this is something you are interested in, a full screen will be completed before exploring this type of treatment with you.

Spasticity can be a complication of your neurological damage which can cause muscles to tighten involuntarily.   The most effective way of managing this is often with medication and botulinum toxin injections.  However there are many things which can impact on your spasticity such as pain or stress. Together we can review the things that might impact on your spasticity, review how you can manage these day to day and look at ways that we can strengthen and maintain the length of your muscles.

It is important that those who are supporting you day to day understand your condition and how best to help you manage your symptoms.  At ZMP neuro physio training can be provided to those that care for you to ensure they know the best way of helping you, whether that is to assist with an exercise programme, mobility or transfers or help you do the things you want to do day to day.