Therapists trained to exercise right muscles, make them work again
By THOMAS LANGFORD, T&D Columnist Monday, December 01, 2008"One of our patients last year was a 79-year-old man from near Orangeburg. Three years earlier he had badly injured his spine (backbone). Months of recommended exercises helped little. Forced to cease any yard work, he could not even bend over to pull on his shoes, and the pains usually awakened him after four hours of sleep," says John Lukowski, director of Healthplex, the Regional Medical Center's rehabilitation clinic.
"His next step took him to a surgical hospital and an operation for spinal fusion (fusing together two of the discs which make up the backbone). After that he suffered more pain and more therapy which eventually brought him to us."
He said Healthplex personnel studied all of the man's medical records, then decided that a different spinal muscle exercise routine should help. Twice a week, the man came to be strapped into a Med-X, a big, heavy mechanical chair which holds the body still while the patient bends forward to his knees, then backward to a seated position, Lukowski said. The chair has a weight device that usually begins with 60 pounds of pressure then is increased five percent every week, he said.
"For eight weeks, this continued as his condition gradually improved until he began sleeping six hours and working around his home for an hour or more at a time. Today he says his crippling condition has improved 85 to 95 percent," the Healthplex director said.
Lukowski said that after well over a half century of study and practice, scientific physical therapy has improved enormously.
"Though we can't heal every patient, we have seen many, many suffering people improve amazingly," he said.
Lukowski also cited a case in which a 44-year-old man from Orangeburg hurt a shoulder while playing two-man baseball catch with his 12-year-old son. A visit to the local doctor showed that he had injured his rotator cuff, a tendon that covers the shoulder capsule, he said. Not only could he not throw a ball, he began suffering a lot of pain at his regular job of automobile mechanic, he said.
"Complete inactivity was our recommendation, but he said this was impossible; he had to keep working to support the family. We set up a stretching routine for him, whereby he held the end of a towel just over the back of his shoulder and the other down near his waistline. After pulling it up and down 20 to 30 times, he rested his arms, then kept repeating the routine. As a variation, to use higher and lower muscles, he held one end of the towel over his head and the other down to the bottom of his back," Lukowski said.
"We don't recommend these exercises for anyone who has not been evaluated by a physician," he added. "The wrong exercise can make an injury even worse.
In this case, the mechanic's arm did not heal as fast as it might have if he had not worked, Lukowski said, but after several months of work plus therapy, it did heal. Today, the man still exercises at Healthplex to make sure none of the injury ever returns, he said.
"The hospital's rehabilitation service began with its opening in 1995, and has grown steadily," Lukowski said. "Today we have eight licensed therapists on the staff who attend to an average of 1,500 patient visits a month. Two other clinics in Orangeburg treat many more. Some come with far more serious injuries than those of these two men, and have to be treated for long periods. Most attend faithfully, but a few become lax and stop treatment for personal reasons, disinterest, financial stress, etc."
Injured athletes or would-be athletes come frequently after falls, collisions, or other kinds of accidents, he said.
"We set up healing routines for them. Recently, a tall, athletic girl on a college basketball team sustained a torn knee ligament. The pains were severe. Told that she had to decide whether to take therapy and try to keep playing or have full surgery, she thought over the situation and decided on the latter," Lukowski said. "Recovery required six months of our treatment, but she returned to the sport full time next season."
He added, "Like nearly all our patients who have excellent recoveries, she possessed the determination to stick with her treatment and make a first class recovery. We hope that all our patients will eventually attain this."
Retired editor and public relations executive Thomas Langford's column is titled "Some Edisto stories." Let him know if you have stories to share: 803-534-2097.
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