♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical Therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(Bob and Brad clapping)
- Hi folks I'm Bob Schrupp, Physical Therapist.
- Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
- And we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we're gonna discuss
the safest neck decompression at home.
It is easy to use, wouldn't you say?
- It's very easy to use.
It's a wonderful device. - And very well-designed.
So by the way, if you're new to our channel,
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Wouldn't we think that, huh Brad?
- Yes.
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- We got through the whole thing, Bob!
- There we go.
- Let's carry on.
- This is the giveaway here.
If Liz could do a closeup on here
you can see the neck.
It's a neck and back massager, the RENPHO.
And you can also see the back.
You might be able to see that through the dark there,
the darkness of the massage--
- Believe me, I just got off it a half-hour ago,
and I'm all massaged up and I feel like a new person, Bob.
- Yeah, you look loose.
- Well, of course.
- All right, Brad.
- Okay!
- We're gonna break in Lonnie here today, right?
- Yes, Lonnie is back to demonstrate.
Now, if neck decompression
or cervical traction, clinically speaking.
First of all, if you're gonna use it,
you gotta make sure it works.
And it's a simple test to find out if it works, and then--
- If it's appropriate or not.
- Right, and then,
what kinda device are you gonna use to do it?
Because you can do it manually,
and I do it on a regular basis in the clinic manually, but--
- By manually, you mean with your hands?
- Yeah, exactly.
- And you'll demonstrate it.
- I'm gonna demonstrate.
And I always do it manually
to find out if I wanna get a mechanical device to do it.
'Cause manually, I can hold it for about 60 seconds,
maybe 2 minutes, then I start to shake
and (laughs) it's just not a good system.
- Yeah, it's not something
you can do to yourself, obviously, either.
- Right, exactly.
- There are less expensive devices too
but they tend not to be that great, are they?
- Well--
- Hard to setup too.
- Right, all's I know, this is what professionals use.
It's a wonderful device, extremely well made,
and easy to use.
- Well, well, well-designed.
- And it is safe, like the title said.
So shall we carry on?
- Let's carry on, I'll turn this on.
- Or should we babble on a little more (laughs)?
- [Bob] There we go.
- Lonnie, come on in!
Come on down.
All right, so if you have a problem with your neck,
you may be experiencing neck pain.
But also, maybe in the shoulder blade
or down into the arm, a pinched nerve.
Sometimes you can be havin' headaches.
And all that can come from pinched nerve
or somethin' that can be relieved through decompression
or cervical traction.
So--
- Yeah, the joints themself, too,
if you have arthritic joints on the cervical spine,
they could be jammin' together
and this provides some relief.
- Right, so what I'll have,
I'll have my patient lay down on a table just like this.
And I'll grab with my hand, just like this, underneath
the head.
And we're at the ax, where that bone--
- Yeah, right where the skull meets the neck.
It's kind of an almost a handle there.
- I had someone call that the skull pan.
- [Bob] Skull pan?
- Yeah.
- [Bob] Interesting.
- Layman's terms, (mumbles).
Little crude, but.
- [Bob] I don't know what laypeople call it.
So that's a good term.
- But that's where probably you can see my hand there.
And actually, this is the exact placement
that the device has its pressure points on.
And it works out really well.
So what I'll say is, is Lonnie,
can you just relax and put your teeth together gently?
So you don't wanna have your tongue in between your teeth.
And I'm just gonna do this
and I'm gonna pull this way,
a little traction or decompression on the neck.
Now, this is gonna be gentle.
I'm not gonna get too aggressive.
And I'm gonna start out with just a little gentle one.
And how did that feel, Lonnie?
- Pretty good.
- Pretty good?
Okay, so if the sign is pretty good
I'm gonna do a little more.
If she would've said, "That kinda hurts,"
I may back off
and not even consider traction or decompression.
- [Bob] How many pounds of pressure
would you think you put on there right away?
- I would just say three to four.
- [Bob] Okay, so very little?
- Yep.
And actually, on the device we have a meter
so we know exactly.
That's a big benefit to this versus the roll points
that go over the door, or into the door going horizontally.
So then, I'm gonna go
right about there.
Now, does it feel good, bad?
Give me thumbs up if it's good.
That was thumbs horizontal.
I'm just kidding (laughs)
- [Bob] Ah, ha, ha, ha.
- Now, if she feels good about it,
I'm just gonna hold it.
And like I said, I can usually hold
for about a minute reasonably comfortably.
Then I start to get a little tired.
And then I'll just relax.
And if Lonnie was feeling good for that whole minute,
then I'm gonna just leave her for a few minutes
so that we wanna have the neck or the symptoms
in the arm or the headache to feel better
while the traction is on, or the decompression,
as well as after you're done.
'Cause it could feel good while the pressure's on,
and then, take the pressure off.
And I've had this happen where it becomes uncomfortable
and it's like, "Oh, now it's startin' to feel bad again."
If that's the case,
we're not gonna continue.
- So when you say bad you mean worse than it was before
or just back to where it was?
- Worse.
If it comes back just to where it was
but it had good results while the pressure's on,
then I would continue on. - Be (mumbles).
But I would do it with a caution light
and make sure that I'd always test
does it feel better afterwards,
and not just for a few minutes?
After we use the device, I'll monitor that
for the next 24 hours.
- So you'd like to see a couple hours of relief possibly?
- Yes, yeah, exactly.
And no getting worse.
Never getting worse.
- Sure, gotcha.
- Either back to where it was or better.
Then it's a green light.
Okay, are you ready, Lonnie?
So we're using the Saunders Cervical Traction.
Now...
- Invented by a Physical Therapist.
- Yeah, he was
a Physical Therapist. - Dwayne Saunders.
I worked at his clinic.
- Can you move that direction, please?
You did?
- [Bob] Yeah.
- When?
- [Bob] I did an internship at one of his clinics
up in Minneapolis. - Really?
- [Bob] Yep.
- What year was that?
- [Bob] 1985.
- Really?
- [Bob] Yep, I met the man and--
- No kiddin'?
- [Bob] Yeah, oh yeah.
He was workin' on a book at that time.
- Oh, yeah, Saunders, he's quite a Physical Therapist
and he's had a number of devices that
I think he invented 'em.
- [Bob] Yeah, he was a real clever guy.
- So with this device, you just lay here.
Now, this can be adjusted.
Lonnie, can you adjust that a little bit?
Just show you how you adjust the neck pads.
Just with your thumbs, screws in.
She's just adjusting it
and it just makes it go out and in.
And you adjust it for your head
so anybody different size heads or adjustment
would easily do it by yourself.
Put it where you like it, Lonnie.
- [Bob] Yeah, we're tryin' to make Lonnie a little taller.
How tall are you, Lonnie?
- I'm five-one.
- [Bob] Five-one? - She's five-one or she--
- [Bob] And that's how tall I used to be, five-one.
- (laughs) Until you started this.
- [Bob] No, I was four years old
but eventually I--
- What you get you wanna (mumbles)?
- I've (mumbles)
- [Bob] No, no, no. I'll (mumbles).
- All right.
So this strap goes over the head.
Really it's not necessary, you can do it without that.
I'm not exactly sure why they have it there,
but it's there and it's comfortable and we're gonna use it.
Now--
- [Bob] I suppose to stop the person
from tryin' to flex their neck forward or something.
- I guess.
- [Bob] You know, just a reminder.
- Yep.
Now, it's very simple to use.
Now, this is a little pneumatic cylinder.
So air pressure gives the traction
or the decompression, okay?
And the person doin' it has complete control.
So Lonnie, you wanna pump it up a little bit?
And then, no.
There's the meter here but I don't know
if we can zoom in close enough to see it.
Why don't you just watch it
so that you know where we're at?
And usually, I go up to about 10 pounds with someone.
Lonnie, you just--
- [Bob] So all she's doin' is
she's pumping the air into the system.
- So that here's the tool that has the air pressure
going through it to the cylinder.
- [Bob] So really, she laid down,
she put her neck in between the two devices there,
she tightened it up.
And then, she's ready to go really.
- Yeah, after you adjust it once,
you don't have to adjust it again.
It's set for you.
Now, how does that feel?
You got a comfortable pressure?
Everything's feeling good?
So now, we put a timer on or you can look at the clock.
And we're gonna go.
The first time I do this,
assuming everything feels good,
I don't go any longer than five minutes
even if they're feelin' really good,
I'm gonna stop at five minutes.
And then, let's say we had the five minutes off,
and then, Lonnie can you take the pressure off?
And all's you do,
if you look really close here,
you'll see how it's taking the decompression off.
And now, we go back to normal.
- [Bob] She just spun that.
- Yeah, it's very simple.
You can lock it, you can put it to compression mode,
and then, the mode that you have when you're done with it.
So it's extremely easy to use, very safe.
- Yeah, I was always very impressed
with the design of this product.
They had everything in mind for convenience
for the patient to do it themselves.
- So if Lonnie has good success with this
over the next couple hours, it feels good,
then she's gonna do it again.
You could easily do this daily.
And you could do it more than once a day,
if you have positive results all the time.
Now, I had a person, a patient, that he was a little older,
he was in his 70's.
He had arthritic neck and he was takin' opioid pain meds.
He was not happy with the side effects.
This gave him relief so he went ahead and bought one.
And he uses this versus the pain meds.
- And I had a patient who had chronic back pain.
And they make one for the back too.
A little more complicated to use
but he had the same thing.
It helped him get through the day
and he could give him a couple hours of relief
and you know?
- If you have a herniated disc in the neck
that has a pinched nerve,
and you're having pain and numbness and tingling
going down the arm,
that can be another--
- This might help.
- Yeah, and I had this with a patient with that
and we only used it for about two weeks
and the problem was gone.
And he didn't need it anymore.
So in that case, it was temporary.
But either way, you can go online, you can buy 'em.
They're not cheap but they're built very well,
easy to use independently.
You don't have to have a second person
adjust the ropes, and this and that, and the other thing.
So it's professional grade.
And you could make an adjustment here
which can make a difference sometimes.
I'll go up and just a little difference on the
angle of the neck. - Oh, didn't even
realize that!
- Oh, yeah.
Saunders thought of everything 'cause three adjustments
and it just clicks into place.
- [Bob] Nice!
- I've always, yeah.
For lying, this is the most comfortable.
I've always found this to be the most useful.
- Yeah, you generally don't need
to go into flexion that far.
All right. - All right.
So very good.
Have good luck with your
neck pain. - Your cervical spine.
- Yep, and everything else.
Now, Lonnie, she's gonna be a little taller
when she gets off.
- That's right.
She's probably about the same height as me now.
- All right - All right.
- Thank you.
- Thanks for watchin'.
(dramatic chime)