Balance Training Physiotherapy
People usually dont think about balance or balance training, because it’s simply not popular or usually thought about in our busy lives…but really, if someone has balance issues, man, it’s really, really tough.
Not only would you feel nauseous and keep falling down; you’d find it very difficult to stand or move around. Working, responsibilities all will be immediately extremely difficult. I know, cos I had a few episodes where my balance centers were off, and I cant even stand up without holding onto chairs or walls. Work was the last thing on my mind.
Contents
Physiotherapy balance training
Balance training treatment in physiotherapy typically refers to activities and exercises that are highly controlled by the physiotherapist, with applications of biomechanical and torque forces to the anatomy and biomechanics. Fancy words, and it simply means we’d exposure you to harder and harder balance exercises to train your balance.
To supplement this balance exercise training, we will also need to treat compensatory movements for patients who has/had imbalance issues. You see, someone who has trouble keeping their balance, would pick up some habits to keep themselves from falling over (kinda like how I told you earlier when I had balance issues, I stood up with the use of walls and chairs).
Over time, there’s more reliance on these external factors, and to make it worse, my body would adapt to using these external factors, such as some muscles overtightening/shortening, which can cause extra strain at joints (and even worsen balance ironically). The physios who’s training your balance will need to undo that compensatory movements as well as introduce normal balance movements over a series of balance re-training.
Balance training physio
Your resting and dynamic balance postures and movements will be observed and analyzed in a series of movements, to understand what’s the main cause of your imbalance issues.
For some patients, it could be
- less-then-adequate footwear
- lacking strength
- lacking coordination
- lacking endurance
- lacking proprioception
- clothing
- pattern of walking
- lower balance
- higher balance
- postural habits
- all of the above!
Physiotherapy intervention can be a mix of
- lower and higher balance training
- strengthening
- coordination / footwork
- manual therapy
- flexibility / stretching
- muscle release works
Where necessary, the physio may refer you to a specialist for specific customized orthoses such as insoles, and in rare cases for surgical intervention (very last resort where all other options run out)
Is physio balance trainings “only for old people?”
Sometimes, people may think “only old people who fall a lot” needs balance physiotherapy treatment, and though its true that many elderly frequent fallers will improve by getting balance physio; most of the time, most normal children and adults will also benefit from having regular balance training, strengthening as well as postural training with physios.
As patients improve their balance, then the physios will gradually and progressively increase the balance difficulty by changing things around, such as
- raised platforms
- uneven platforms
- dynamic platforms
- bosu balls
Patients who are safe and independent enough can buy to train themselves at home / office, BUT if patients are more at risk, especially with a pre-existing weakness/imbalance/condition, please do not use Bosu ball on your own – come in to get physio balance training first.
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