when someone's on the floor with a back spasm you will find you eventually reach
the point where you need to get them off the floor to take them to the bathroom
or to a bed or to the doctor's surgery this can be quite a difficult situation
for people because any movement is absolute agony and the muscles will lock
and almost prevent that movement so I would just like to very quickly show you
the best way I found to help someone get up with the least pain possible so let's
start in the lying position so by now you will have got your friend into a
comfortable position on the floor now the big mistake that people make in
trying to get up off the floor is in activating the back muscles to try and
get them up so they might roll into this position and try and come up like this
in which case you're activating all your back muscles or they might do it from
the side or and all of these movements are just it they'll just you'll get
there eventually but it will be very painfully so the best way I found is
from your sideline position which most people tend to to begin in is you roll
on to your front what you want is for your your arm muscles perdu to be doing
all of the work and your back muscles to be completely relaxed so the minute you
roll over here and push up here you make your biceps do all the work and you move
very slowly just walk your hands towards your body and move up here and
eventually just push yourself up very very slowly is the key into the kneeling
position walk your hands gently towards you and you will find that you'll come
up into a sitting position I'm going to show you now how to get into the next
stage of the standing position
so I'm just going to demonstrate how you might help your friend get up off the
floor and into a standing position in order to get to the bathroom so Sara if
you just want to copy with the movement so you just turn your body to the floor
and put all your weight down through the answers she's gonna do baby movements
just walking her hands around until she comes into a kneeling position just drop
the hips back now to bear in mind that that can take up to ten if not 15
minutes depending on how severe the spasm is that you're dealing with so
don't be afraid if that takes a very very long time now let's just bring in
my little prop the next thing we're gonna need to do is take Sara into a
standing position now this can take a very long time and done incorrectly
could result in her collapsing onto the floor again and we don't want to do that
we really want to avoid that and just get her up so the keys to go very very
slowly and to remember that you're avoiding the back muscles doing any work
at all you really need to get the legs doing the work and you need to get the
arms doing the work so I've just positioned a very hard chair on the left
of Sara so I'm gonna Sarah just place your hand on that chair now Sara is
gonna put all her weight into that chair and also into me so if you're going to
help someone get off the floor do be aware that at any time they could drop
and they could put a large amount of their weight through you so you need to
be ready and prepared for that so make sure that your own abdominal muscles are
contracted your back muscles are contracted and you're really ready to
take their weight or help them very elegantly drop to the floor if they need
to okay so I was just going to put all her weight through the chair and through
me and then just bring one foot forward that's it and then gently come up into
standing position bear in mind that can also take a long time it could take up
to five minutes even now once you're in this position to get walking to the
bathroom again you need to encourage your friend to relax their back muscles
so I would literally talk and say make sure you relax your back don't use any
of your back muscles put your weight through me and you should have another
friend there as well contract your own abdominals protect yourself okay and the
key is just to do little movements little steps so baby steps Sara just
shuffle forward all the time just relaxing the back
in the back just taking your time and a little bit more that's it
there we go so eventually by hook or by crook you will arrive at the bathroom or
the bed or wherever you're trying to get your friend now getting to a sitting
position on to the toilet can also be quite a tricky situation because you do
need to activate the back muscles in order to sit down so it is possible to
do it without using your back muscles I just bring the chair into position so
here's Sarah so I'm basically just going to ask Sarah to put her weight through
me and hopefully you'll have maybe a shelf or something that they can put the
neck the other hand through so just Britt put your weight through me and
literally just drop to the floor relaxing your muscles using your leg
muscles and me is it's a big job helping someone and you do have to take a lot of
weight and the key is to do it very slowly so that doesn't hurt you ask
yourself similarly when they need to get up from
the toilet they may need to again put all their weight through you that's it
nice and slow like I said if there's two people it's much better one person
either side is is much less effort for each person so there you go that's my
advice for how to get someone from the floor into a standing position and to
the bathroom there will be lots of ways possible but that is the way I find
works best for me if you would like more information on preventing a spasm
managing a spasm exercises to prevent a spasm and resolve a spasm first aid tips
for dealing with back spasms go to my website soothe clinic calm