A blockage in a blood vessel within the brain can change the course of your life for years to come. That blood vessel’s blockage or bursting means oxygen-rich blood cannot reach various areas of the brain, leading to an impact on the function of those areas. When that area controls movement or communication between the brain and your body’s functions, it takes time and hard work to rebuild.
The key to knowing about stroke patients and physical therapy is that the brain can often overcome serious injuries, allowing it to heal and restore some or even all of its function – if physical therapy can rebuild those connections. Here’s why.
Strengthening Muscles After a Stroke
One of the most important reasons to invest in physical therapy after a stroke is because it helps your muscle function and strength improve. With muscle-strengthening exercises, it’s possible to help those muscles to work more effectively. Those movements also help to stimulate the brain-to-muscle connection, which is so critical.
This process is so much more than just building muscle mass or knowing if you should heat or cold on a muscle ache. It is about creating new communications between your brain and muscles while also working to build muscles that work more efficiently. Every step is a bit different. Your physical therapist will work with you to support your recovery.
Regaining Mobility and Coordination
Depending on the location and severity of the stroke, you may experience significant limitations to mobility. With physical therapy, you’re re-teaching your brain how to properly control movements. You also help it by learning how to create more precise movements, those that you may have had prior to the stroke.
Over time, the repeated efforts of physical therapy allow improved communication between the brain and the nerve endings that control muscle function. This allows you to have more coordinated movements. Precision tasks, such as wrapping your fingers around a pencil or walking up steps with confidence, improve with each physical therapy appointment.You will likely spend time with a harness to support you as you learn to walk again. This often leads to spending time with assisted devices and ultimately building coordination with repetition, such as using a treadmill. You may be afraid of physical therapy initially, but your abilities will improve with each appointment, and in most situations, it will give you more confidence.
Improved Balance and Stability
When you learn how fascinating physical therapy can be, you’ll see that those exercises – even when they seem so simple – are creating incredible improvements in the way you hold yourself, move your body, and navigate tasks. That can only happen, though, if your brain can maintain proper balance and stability.
Many people suffer from reduced limb and trunk motor control after a stroke. Your sensations may be different. Additionally, impaired balance leads to a fear of falling, which actually increases the risk of a fall. Your physical therapist will incorporate strategies to help improve balance, such as:
- Strengthening trunk muscles
- Dynamic sitting balance
- Sitting and standing repetition with support
Promoting Brain Recovery Through Neuroplasticity
There are many impressive components to physical therapy, but what your brain does while you are working on healing and recovery physically is nothing short of amazing. The brain will work to rewire itself over time. That means the more you walk, talk, and use the area impacted, the more your brain learns and adjusts to those needs. This is called neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity is often a core component of your physical therapy after a stroke. Your muscles are not damaged, and your joints work. What doesn’t work the way it should is the connection between your brain and those areas. Neuroplasticity provides a way to improve this, allowing your brain to relearn how to function and use those muscles.
Strokes damage the connections within the brain that connect the body and brain. Every rehabilitation session helps by encouraging the brain to make new connections. It’s not about rebuilding the old but creating new, healthy connections in healthy parts of the brain. This allows your brain to better control its functions.
It’s very common for you to feel like you’re going backward when you first work with a physical therapist to build those motor skills and improve overall function. Yet, that’s not really what’s happening. The new connections forming are not nearly as strong as the old ones you had. Therefore, it’s going to feel like you’re brand new at raising your arm or taking a step. That’s expected, and your physical therapist will use manual therapy and other strategies to help you.
Creating Customized Rehabilitation Plans
How can your brain learn and overcome these challenges? The use of a custom rehabilitation plan is what makes it possible. You will work with a physical therapist who will:
- Provide an assessment to determine where you are now. This process pinpoints the current condition and concerns present. It’s the baseline.
- Your therapist will then be able to use that information to create a plan of action, including various specific movements and therapy types designed to target your areas of need.
- Through each session, your therapist monitors how you are improving and adjusts your plan of care to meet new challenges or enhance outcomes so that you’re always getting the very best level of care possible.
This type of hands-on support from your therapist allows for a treatment plan to be developed that specifically focuses on your needs. Every session, you’re working on the key areas most important to your recovery, and you’re making the best use of that time.
Rock Valley Physical Therapy Is Here to Help!
If you or your loved one suffered a stroke, every moment counts, not just in getting help but also in building strength and recovery. The sooner you can begin working with a therapist, the more opportunity there is to heal. You can get started now by finding your Rock Valley Physical Therapy clinic. Then, request an appointment with our team and get your care started.