Underwater Treadmill Helps Balance-Challenged Patients Stay Safe as They Progress
“The fear of falling is very great with dynamic balance challenges… one of the elements that we’ve got to our advantage by doing this is in the water is that when Jack does lose his balance, he’s not going to sustain a fall…” – Mike Studer, PT, MHS, NCS, CEEAA, Northwest Rehabilitation Associates in Salem, Oregon
For many patients, especially those with balance problems who have already fallen at least once, the fear of walking unassisted in a land-based environment can become practically immobilizing. That’s one of the reasons the team at Northwest Rehabilitation Associates chooses to use the HydroWorx underwater treadmill pool to assist patients with balance issues.
In today’s blog post, we are privileged introduce you to Mike Studer and Jack, an 88-year-old gentleman with peripheral neuropathy. Jack’s condition has left him with severe balance challenges, but he’s slowly regaining his ability to walk safely, minimizing his chances of hurting himself. Studer attributes a significant part of Jack’s progress over 2.5 months of physical therapy to his water-based workouts and exercises in their facility’s state-of-the-art HydroWorx pool.