- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- Well, in our opinion, of course, Bob-
- Brad, we got a request,
I don't mean to cut you off, but I do mean to cut you off.
We got request from people asking us
how to go up and down stairs after you've had a stroke.
And we're gonna do it both with a cane,
and we're gonna do it with railings
and we're gonna do it without railings.
- Right? - Okay.
- Now this is kind of hard for us to do
because there's so many scenarios of steps between a wall.
Is there two rails? Are the rails close or together?
How high the steps are.
So we're just going down to our steps in the therapy room-
- Right - And we'll do what we can.
- Yeah, we'll do some basics here.
The first thing is now this is the involved side,
the side where I have the THERABAND, the yellow side.
- Right.
- That's the side that the weakness is on from the stroke.
- Right - Okay.
So, I'm using a cane and as I come up to the stairs
the first basic understanding you need to follow
is that you're always gonna go up with the good leg,
the leg that's not been involved,
and you're gonna go down with the bad leg.
- Right, up with the straw, down with the weak.
- Right, or going up to heaven,
you're gonna go with the good leg.
- Yep.
- Going down to hell,
which you're probably gonna be familiar with, Brad,
that's the bad leg.
All right, here we go.
We're gonna start off with the cane.
The cane always stays on the lower step,
or on the lower portion. - Sure.
- So up with the good.
So I'm going up with the good leg.
- Yep.
- Now I can put pressure on the cane
and some on the bad leg, and I'm gonna push up.
Now, again, the cane is on the lower step,
up with the good.
There we go. - Right.
- If we're going gonna go down, cane down first,
then the bad leg...
I hate to say bad. Involved.
- Right, or weak. - Weak leg.
Down with the cane, down with the leg, there we are.
- Right. - All right.
- If there is a wall on one side that can be handy.
The weak side may go against that, so if you did,
you could possibly use that for balance.
- Right? That's a good point.
If there is no railing but there's a wall right here,
what I'm gonna do is as I go up, again,
I'm going up with the good, I'm gonna stay-
- I'm the wall.
- I'm staying against the wall here, and now,
so if I kind of lose my balance
I'm just gonna go up against the wall,
not fall backward or to the right.
So I'm gonna stay against the wall.
Again, up with the good and I'm leaning against the wall.
Hopefully there's a wall there.
If there's not a wall, and there's not a railing there,
Brad and I would suggest, probably,
that either you have somebody with you
holding onto your belt-
- Right.
- or you have some modifications made to your steps.
'Cause if you look at these steps here,
we have both, what is this, probably a six inch rise, Brad?
- They're usually six or seven standard.
I don't have my tape measure on me,
but you can see they're the same height
and you got two steps versus three.
- Right, you could actually have your steps modified.
I mean, one, you could put a railing on,
which would help a lot, or two,
you can make the steps so they're not as a high of rise,
'cause it's gonna be a lot easier to go up these steps
than it is to be going up those steps.
So, obviously, you can see,
I just have to barely clear to get up on these.
I got the wrong step, Brad.
- You got the wrong leg.
- Yeah, here we go.
But just barely got the need to clear to get up these,
so it makes it a lot easier.
- I just had a patient going home from rehab,
and they literally rebuilt his steps to make 'em shorter.
From seven inches down to four inches, just like this.
You know, you can put a ramp down obviously-
- But a ramp takes a long level-
- Right.
- You'd need a long area to do so.
- Right, and that was this case, he didn't have the room-
- Right. - Inside the garage.
- So that's a good modification
is to make the steps smaller.
If there's a railing,
obviously you're gonna use the railing.
Again, you know, hold on to it with the non-involved arm.
Gonna go up with the good, up with the good.
Now going down steps, if the railings on the wrong side,
I would recommend going backwards.
- Yes. - Don't you Brad?
- Yeah.
- And again, I'm going down with the involved
or down with the bad first, and I'm gonna hold on.
This is just a lot more safe than trying to go down,
holding onto a cane,
if you can always hold onto the solid section.
- Right, right.
- So use the wall, use the railings,
make modifications, or have somebody with you
- Right, or don't go up and down 'em
if you're by yourself and it's wide open.
- Right. All right. - Okay.
- Thanks for watching. - Keep subscribing.