Something that has been passed around in discussion lately with me and my colleagues is the pros or cons of strength training for people with spasticity. There are two sides to the argument. One side says that it should be avoided and the other that if it can be beneficial. I think we were finding that for some people it could be beneficial. The problem that we were running into was when a muscle had spasticity in it but was also weak. What is the best course of action in this case? Would light strength training with lots of stretching be beneficial or should it be avoided altogether and just incorporate lots of stretching. I find these are areas that we did not cover in our training so I have no real answer. I did find an article that reviewed spasticity and strength training and supported it as long as it was done properly and that the muscle imbalance was not exacerbated.
I was just wondering if any other conductors or professionals out there have had experience with working with people with spasticity and tried muscles strengthening and what results they obtained.
Damiano, D., Dodd, K., and N. Taylor (2002) Should we be testing and training muscle strength in cerebral palsy? Development Medicine & Child Neurology. 44: 68-72.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment