- Bob and Brad
the two most famous physical therapists on the internet.
- 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.
- Today, Brad, we're gonna talk about how to properly adjust
and safely use crutches.
This is a skill that everybody needs to have
after they've broken a leg, or
if they had a hip surgery or knee surgery.
- Precisely, and it's one of those things that
if you go to a doctor
they're not gonna show you how to do it.
You usually have to go to a PT or
or go on YouTube and see what Bob and Brad have to say.
- By the way,
- There you go.
- The time is now, right?
- It is.
- Yeah. If you are new to our channel
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And we wanna turn things around.
- Why Bob? Why?
- Okay.
- Crutches. So the first thing you want
to do is hopefully if you need crutches,
you get a pair of the newer ones
that are aluminum and they are much more easily adjustable.
- Oh they are. Yeah, as opposed to the unscrew?
- Right, the wooden ones where you have
to do more manual labor and whatnot, but
if that's all you have, you can certainly do it
using the same principles.
It's just a little bit harder.
But another first thing, that's the first thing.
Then the second first thing is go to the tips
and see what the tips look like.
Can, can you zoom in on that, Lonnie?
If you have an older pair that's been, you know
around for a while and you don't want to go out
and buy new one, which is a really good idea.
We're always up for that
but make sure the tips are, first of all,
they need to be squishy.
- [Bob] Yeah. Soft.
- [Brad] Yeah. If they're old and especially
if they've been on the sunlight, they can start to dry
and crack and then they slip on the floor.
- [Bob] They get real hard.
- Yeah.
- And that's usually how I test it Brad.
I don't know if you do with that.
I just go like this.
- Yep.
- And I go like this on an angle.
And I dunno if you can go down, Lonnie
and if it slides away,
- Right
- You don't want to use it.
- Yeah. It'll go just like that.
- Yeah, it'll just go like that.
- So once you know that your tip is good and then, you know
you got your pair and then you gotta look
to make sure they come in usually three different.
What did I say?
A grow size is small ones for a child and a medium one.
And then the tall one, like this pair
would probably be a medium.
I'd have to look, but this will adjust for me.
But you take someone like Bob
a tall drink of water, like him, six and a half footer.
These will not adjust tall.
- It actually has the numbers on here.
- Sure.
- What's real nice about this too.
So this adjusts for someone from five two
to all the way up to five ten.
- Right.
- So obviously I don't fit into that category
- Yeah, not in that genre.
- I'm in the giant category.
- This is a man of men.
- Yeah.
- So then also, if you look up here
there's little cushions that go up into your armpits.
They're nice to have on there.
Although if you use your crutch properly, you really
don't need those.
And we'll talk about that in a little bit.
So you take your crutches and the first adjustment,
there's two adjustments.
There is the heighth of the armpit pad, the axillary pad
- Or as normal people say it, height.
- What did I say?
- Heighth, height. He always says heighth
- Bob that's anyways.
And then you have to adjust the hand as well.
But first you do the first
- First the height.
- Height
- Okay. So when you put it, I like to go a slight angle out
and then this should not be pushing into your armpit.
You should be able to at least get two fingers easily in
here. Okay.
But you don't want it way out there you want it just
out about six inches from your foot
Now to adjust that on these aluminum ones,
- Quite simple. Push the button on both sides.
- Yep. Now Bob mentioned there's numbers on here.
Like this one says five ten, which I'm five ten.
I keep shrinking.
I used to be five ten and a half.
But when I put it on five ten, it's too tall.
- Yeah.
- So it'll get you in the ball park.
- It gets you close.
- Yep.
- But you gotta figure it out yourself.
- Yeah. Okay.
- So I have it all the way up and obviously it's
not gonna work for me.
- Right. So, well
why don't you put that one to the five nine
because I know that's good for me.
- Gotcha.
- This one's already pre adjusted, so Bob will do that.
And there we go.
You know, they should be the same, you know
unless there's some anomalies you have, but now look
at this.
When you put your hand down here, you should have
a slight bend in the elbow.
- Sure.
- Now, look at this one.
I've got a lot of bend
- Too much bend.
- Yep. So when you put
at that same angle and put your arm down
the handle should ride right about at the wrist.
Okay. And so you have that slight bend.
- So you're gonna adjust that one.
- Yep. Now they don't.
I think they do make these that are quick adjust Bob
and you don't have to fiddle around with.
- Really? I thought they'd be worried about
that cause it might loosen them?
- Well you might be right.
I don't Know.
- Can I talk about this while you're doing that?
- Yeah. You go ahead.
- And so some people, you know
because you're on crutches all day long
and taking weight through the hands, we have a lot
of patients who become their hands get real sore.
So sometimes we just take lambs wool
like this and cut it up or something soft.
And we wrap it around like this and tape it in place.
And that creates a nice cushion that when
you're having to put weight through the hand all day long
it helps make that a little bit more able to handle it.
- Right. More comfortable.
- Comfortable. There we go.
That's the word I was looking for.
- Yes.
- All right.
Okay. So I got them adjusted properly.
Those are not pushing into my armpit.
So the weight of your body, when you take your step
is gonna go through your palms of your hand, not
into your armpits, because you got some,
a nerve bundle that goes through there.
And if you get that irritated, you're gonna have
some problems and it's gonna be uncomfortable
to use a lot of the time.
- It's gonna send pain and numbness and tingling down your
your arm.
- Right.
- You might be squeezing a little bit.
Right.
- Right.
- Just to hold them in place.
I mean you squeeze the arms together a little bit.
- Right.
So they're not flapping around.
- Right.
- Okay.
So you get them adjusted properly.
Now typically when you have crutches, there's a no weight
bearing status.
One of your legs is not gonna be allowed to have any weight
from a broken, you know, ankle, knee, whatever it may be.
- Right.
- So obviously that's my leg that's broken.
So you're gonna lead with your crutches and swing
through here.
And you know, you just start out easy.
And typically younger people get really good at this.
- Right.
- Really fast.
You know, if I have someone in their seventies
oftentimes we won't use these unless they're pretty mobile
then we'll work on this and they do work pretty darn well
and you can get some pretty good speed on them.
Now
- The thing about crutches, you can use them
on stairs where it's difficult to use
like a walker on stairs.
- Oh, that's a really good point, Bob.
- So that's why a lot
of times they're a little more versatile.
- Right?
- Of course they fall over.
Every time you sit down
and place somewhere they're gonna fall.
- That's true.
That's true.
So now typically what'll happen.
Let's say this leg.
I was using crutches as no weight bearing
in four weeks later, the doctor says, well
now you can put weight on it, but it's gonna hurt.
You still might need some support.
- So partial weight bearing.
- Yeah. Partial weight bearing at that point.
A lot of times you can get rid of the one crutch.
Now, if this is the one that's partial weight bearing
you're gonna use the crutch and the opposite hand.
- Opposite side, yeah.
- A lot of people think it's over here
and you're gonna walk with it together, which you can do.
But over here, you're much more stable.
- It's a more natural walk.
It's a more of a natural walk too.
- So then the sore leg is gonna go forward
with the crutch.
So these two are a mirror from each other.
I like to think of it.
And then sore leg, crutch.
They work together just like they're glued together.
Oh I'm out of the picture, Bob.
- Yeah. As an alternative you could.
I mean, if you're not that fast
I mean you could go crutch, sore leg.
- Sure.
- You know, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3
- Right.
- Until you get maybe a little more better with it.
- Yeah, that's a good point.
- And you can also use both crutches to start off with
partially.
- Sure, you better believe it.
- 1, 2, 3.
I mean you could go crutches.
- Crutches.
- 1
- 3. Yeah.
- Crutches, sore leg, good leg.
Yeah. Crutches, sore leg, good leg.
And keep singing that to yourself.
- Yeah. And then people wonder again about you.
What is going on?
- We don't have a chair here, Bob.
I did wanna show one thing.
If you're sitting down and you got your two crutches.
- Oh, how to get up?
- Yeah. How to get up is a nice thing to review.
- It's funny. I just went through this with a patient.
- You did?
- She didn't know how to do this.
- Did you tell her?
You could have told her to wait until she saw this Video.
- Yeah, I could have.
- So you have your crutches sitting here
and here's my sore leg.
And I want to get up to, let's say I want
to get up to go get something to eat,
go to the refrigerator.
I like to put both crutches together
like this and go like this.
- Yeah. And sometimes what you can do if you can go to
the back of the chairs right here.
- Yeah.
- So you can turn so that now you can put
use your arm on the back of the chair.
So now the back of the chair's right here.
- Right. Wouldn't it be something if we
had an actual chair?
- Yeah. We got a chair right here, Brad.
- Anybody could do it that way, Bob. Yeah.
- Well, you're not gonna be able to turn on this one
very easy.
- Yes, I will.
All right.
So I've got this here.
I'm gonna turn here and I can use
this or go off of here.
- Yeah.
- And get it.
- There we go.
- And then go to here
- And that's, it seems like a minor thing
but it was a big thing for her.
She was a young athlete and still, she was like
how do I get up with crutches?
- Yeah.
- I've seen people do it even like this too, Brad.
I mean where they go like this and
- Yeah.
- But that's a little more difficult, but
it does work.
- Right. You got two wobbly things.
If you can get your hand on one side,
- it's a lot more stable to do it the other way.
- One solid object.
And then, and then these, so
- yeah.
- I don't know.
Everything is looking pretty good.
So make sure your adjustments, right.
You got good tips.
You go through the sequence,
- avoid the ice.
Remember on ice.
You're I mean, especially
whether you live in Minnesota, Wisconsin, like we do.
- Yeah.
- I mean, you're dealing with
I mean the crutches just don't grab on ice.
- Right.
- You know, so yeah.
- That's a whole nother story.
We may do a video
on what you can do to get the grippers for ice.
- I didn't know there was such a thing, so, all right.
- Take care. Thanks for watching