♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- [Bob] Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- I'm Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- [Bob] And together we are
the most famous physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- [Bob] Yeah, in our opinion.
- Okay, obviously this is not Bob.
Bob's behind the camera, but Lonnie's gonna help us out.
She's normally doing the the camera duties.
Deep tendon reflexes.
These are the tests that when you go
to the doctor or therapist,
they pull out their little hammer
and they start tapping on you.
- [Bob] Right.
- And things happen.
- [Bob] Right.
- So I'm gonna say explain a little bit why they're doing it
and you can do this to yourself at home as well.
- [Bob] Sure.
- Okay. One thing you're gonna need is a little hammer.
- [Bob] Not like that.
- Not like this. This is not gonna work.
- [Bob] You do some damage.
- (coughing) Oh my gosh. Excuse me.
If you don't have a little hammer like this
you can use your fingers.
And my hand just kinda like a little karate chop.
But I'm gonna demonstrate it first with the hammer.
Okay. There's three of 'em that I'm gonna go through.
And this is working the neurological,
they're called neurological tests.
And we're gonna start out with the knee.
Okay. If you look at the knee cap
if you get kind of feel the knee cap right here.
Lonnie's not ticklish at all.
And you get to the bottom of the kneecap
and there's a tendon right here
and you're gonna tap right there and see what happens.
Could you see that, Bob?
- [Bob] Yep. Absolutely.
- If you look at Lonnie's foot and I tap that tendon,
she's got a nice beat right there.
Okay. Now that one, we would call that positive.
Okay. It's working. Now, what we're looking for,
and this is something that you're not gonna grade at home
you need to be a professional, is the grade of reflex.
If someone kicks way out to here
then it's too positive and there's a measurement for that.
I'm not gonna get into that.
We're just get into what we're looking for
on that knee jerk reflex. Okay.
- [Bob] And if there's no reflex at all, it
it might not mean anything.
But if, if there's no reflex there
and there's reflexes other places,
it might mean like you're
if you're having a sciatic nerve problem-
- Right.
- [Bob] and it's actually the nerve was affected
from your back.
- It's being impinged or something is not working properly.
There's some other tricks to this
but Lonnie's got a good one going right here.
A lot of times, go ahead, Lonnie, grab your hands like this.
Look straight ahead and pull as hard as you want.
Let's see if we get a different reflex here.
And it's just about the same.
Some people have to do this in order for it to work.
I don't want to get involved with the reasoning for that.
We're gonna go to the next one.
Same thing. You take your, your reflex hammer
and right on the tendon, the Achilles tendon right here.
I'm just going to tap that.
And you're gonna see if you see a beat
or her foot plantar flex or point down.
And I'm gonna, you just relax Lonnie.
- [Bob] Yeah. Sometimes I'd pull a foot up
a little bit I was gonna say.
- [Brad] Yep. The biggest thing here
the person has to relax and think about something else.
Have 'em look somewhere else.
If they're looking down
and watching you do it, it won't work.
There we go.
She's got a really good, strong beat there.
She is not doing that consciously. It's all reflex.
Is that true, Lonnie? - [Lonnie] Mm hm.
- [Brad] Better say yes.
- [Bob] (chuckling)
- And then there's another one. And this is called clonus.
And alls you do here is I'm gonna quickly pull the toes up
and then there's beats. If you watch your toes right here.
She's not doing that consciously.
- [Bob] Yeah. She gets a beat there doesn't she?
- [Brad] Actually two of them.
- [Bob] Two beats, yeah.
- [Brad] Two beats.
If you get more than three clear beats, that's a positive.
So you don't have any problems right, Lonnie?
You're a healthy person and everything's going well.
- [Bob] As far as she knows.
- Right. So again, if you're having a back problem,
you have a pinched nerve,
the doctoral therapist may do these tests
to find out if it's a problem in the neurological system.
Or it could be something like
if you had a stroke is a really good time
where they're gonna do these to see if there's a problem
in the brain or in the spinal cord itself.
So you can practice these
and they can be kind of fun to do it.
If you're a therapist or a professional in this
it might be a good review for you.
Or you may want to see something done
a little more specifically.
So once again, Bob, what do you have to say?
- [Bob] I have to say Lonnie does a good job.
I don't think I need to show up anymore.
- Thanks, Lonnie.
- [Bob] All right. Thanks.