- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together, we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course.
- Brad, I thought today we would go over just
one really good exercise to do after you've had a stroke.
It's just a good one that...
It's fairly easy to do,
but you are gonna need a physio ball.
You know, one of those-
- Bouncy size balls. - Why don't you throw it
to me?
Not this ball. - Give it to me.
Quit abusing it.
Get away from it.
- Throw it away.
Let's get the right ball in here.
- I'm not throwin it anywhere, set it down over here.
- All right, this is a physio ball.
They come in different sizes,
but we're not gonna go over that.
We're just gonna go over-
- Right, yeah, a lot of people know what these are.
You know, if we're talking about strokes,
this is usually people that
their parents may have had a stroke,
You might be 40 or 50 years old
and your parent may have suffered a stroke
and this is something you could help them with.
- There's actually a lot of exercises you can do
on the ball with a stroke.
We'll have to maybe do some more in the future here.
- But my point was Bob, if you are 40, 50, or-
- You ought to subscribe to us.
- Right, 'cause we're gonna help
with a lot of tips like this.
- Overall, we keep you healthy and fit,
and if bad things happen to you like a stroke,
we're gonna help you get through it.
Now, with a stroke, what happens, generally,
is either a artery bursts or ruptures in the brain
or a artery gets a blood clot,
and either way- - It plugs up.
- Yeah, it actually causes death to part your brain.
- Because the blood flow to the tissues is no longer there,
and without blood flow, the tissue dies.
- And the reason it's important for you to understand that
is 'cause what happens afterwards.
Because different parts of your brain
provide different functions, like, for example,
quite often, the middle cerebral artery
is the one that gets affected
and that often affects your arm
in which it becomes weak or completely flaccid-looking,
there's no strength at all, or it might affect your leg,
but there is recovery that can happen to that.
The brain doesn't come alive again, but what happens is
other parts of the brain can help out.
Your brain is what they call plastic.
It can, actually, over time-
- Your brain might be plastic, but I-
(laughing)
- It means it's moldable
and that it can help out other parts of the brain.
The other thing that can happen is
that there may be swelling the brain right after the stroke,
and then as that goes down, your function is gonna return.
So you're gonna wanna work your leg or arm,
and this time, we're gonna talk about the leg.
To indicate which leg we're talking about,
we're gonna pretend that this is the leg that was affected,
and generally, this leg is fine then.
- Right, so, you know, if I was to walk on here,
you know, somebody who had stroke, you know,
you may see a gape like that, possibly.
- You may see like that or it may not-
- It might not even- - You might fall right over.
- Right, exactly.
- So let's start,
you're gonna be laying down in position, Brad.
- So this would be done probably with a person in bed
'cause they're not gonna get 'em on a floor,
so you probably wanna have an exercise table like this.
- Right.
Now, if you're alone
and you, you know, have a little bit of ability,
you could take this leg and hook it underneath that leg.
- Like that. - Yep.
And pull it up onto the ball.
- Okay, yeah.
Sometimes the leg may have a little bit of strength
and it might build up, but you help out with the other leg.
- Yep, and it might stay up there on its own.
If it doesn't, it's gonna fall right off.
If it's gonna fall right off,
then you gotta keep that leg...
No, I would go underneath.
I would keep that leg like that.
- That's a good idea 'cause I might even
have to help with my arms to get it up to-
- Or, when you put it up there in the first place, Brad,
You can start in this position bring it up there
and just leave it up there like that, okay?
So what you're gonna work on here
is basically just bending the leg toward you
and what you want to concentrate on,
you want visually watch it
because the more you give feedback to your body
the more that the leg can respond.
But what you wanna try here is, as much as possible,
have the involved leg do the work.
You're trying to make this one do the work.
If it can't help at all,
then you're gonna do it with the other leg,
but eventually, what you should see
is that this leg is helping, and it may take,
you know, a couple days, it may take a couple of weeks,
but you're gonna see that this, actually,
is giving assistance.
- And if you're doing this with a friend or family member,
you may have to actually help the first time depending,
just to help him get used to it.
So there's nothing wrong, like, if Bob was helping me,
he could grab my feet and-
- Or I could even just roll the ball like this.
- Work the ball, just to get that in tune.
- Or, if I was helping,
I would probably would take this one off to the side
or maybe even off like that and just start going like this.
Great range of motion.
And even say, "Okay, push Brad, push.
Push, push, push, push, push."
- And this is exactly what you'll see in the therapy room
with therapists working with their patients.
- So it's a great one just to start off
and give you an introduction.
We'll try to do some more in the future with the ball.
- And there's one thing, you know,
make sure the person has a pillow
'cause their neck gets sore like this.
- Yeah, this is not a very comfortable position.
- Kind of go to the progression,
so, you know, if with one person, they can do it,
then finally they can do it with the good leg helping,
and after this leg starts to get stronger,
then they would progress just to that leg.
- That's right, exactly.
- And, you know, by that time,
hopefully, you're maybe doing some walking,
put some pressure through it.
So I'm gonna take a nap here,
Bob. - All right,
sounds like a plan. - Say goodbye to 'em.
- Peace out.