- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist
- And together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the Internet.
- In our opinion, of course.
- Brad, I thought we'd just do
a simple exercise you can do
for someone who has had a stroke
and this will work even if they have
absolutely no strength in that extremity.
We're talking about the arm now.
Now, when you, just basic about a stroke,
basic information,
when you have a stroke,
one of two things has happened.
You had an artery in your brain
that either got plugged up, got clogged
or it burst. - Ruptured, yep.
- Yeah, ruptured.
And either case, part of the brain dies.
And as you know, or maybe don't know,
part of your your brain is set up so that
different parts run different parts of your body.
So quite often, what happens is like
the middle cerebral artery will affect the arm.
And so let's say my right arm was affected
to the point where it's totally what we call flaccid,
it has no strength whatsoever.
- And almost always, the other side is totally functional.
- Right, exactly. It's usually one sided.
It may affect the,
generally I see is that
it affects the arms more than the legs.
And what you want to do is,
how you can get recovery,
cause when the brain dies
is what can happen is other parts of the brain
can start helping out and taking over.
The other thing that can happen is the swelling goes down.
So while these things happen,
you want to start getting some movement in the arm
and you want to keep it stretched out.
So these are basically two exercises
we call them PNF,
PNF
proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation.
- PN not P and - Yeah, not P and
P, the letter N. - N.
- Paul Nancy Frank, PNF.
- There you go.
All right, so we're gonna start with
in both times,
you're gonna start with the palm down.
Now this is your involved side,
this means that there's no strength there.
So I'm gonna, you're gonna take it.
You can grasp your fingers like this
or you can grasp like this, either way,
but I'm gonna take it palm down
so the palm is down
and you're gonna take it
and you're gonna watch with your eyes
because this helps create some of the recovery.
- Right. Visually, oftentimes you neglect one side
as well with a stroke. - Right.
- If you know someone with a stroke or you had one,
you know exactly what we're talking about.
- So the palm is down and this right,
left arm is helping the right arm
take it up here.
And that, now I go to the palm-up position.
- Right. - Okay?
Now what you're trying to do is
you're trying to have this arm help
as much as you can.
- This one. - Right.
(crosstalk)
- You're trying to think about,
you're trying to think about it getting to help.
And this is getting,
this works on posture
and it's also getting some rotation of the body,
things that you all need to do,
to have happen after you've had a stroke.
So palm up, I'm sorry.
Palm down, palm up.
Palm down, palm up. Okay?
Now you can also start in this position.
Again, palm down, but you're in the upper position now.
Palm down, palm up.
- Now this is to me, a little confusing
because I keep forgetting which is the involved side.
We should have put a tape around your arm but,
so this is the side that's weak.
- Yeah this is the side that's weak.
- If you had a stroke
and I had this arm like this and I let go,
this is what would happen.
(slaps)
It would probably just flap down.
- Yeah, exactly.
- And then you're a candidate for this type of exercise.
Or even if you have a little strength in it.
- All right, just to review these again.
Going this way
or I'm going this way.
- So if you look at just the hand that would be weak,
can you do that motion?
- Okay. - Once it gets better then
yeah.
So that would be the side
that doesn't have the strength to do it,
but just so you see the palm is towards
and now the palm's down.
- And here.
Okay?
- Excellent.
- All right. You're 40, 50 and over,
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And also if bad things do happen to you,
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- Right, little tidbits like this can make a big difference
so we can fix just about anything
except for what, Bob?
- We can't fix a broken heart.
- Say no more.