♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet. ♪
(clapping)
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together, we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we're gonna talk about
prevent deep vein thrombosis blood clot in calf muscles,
and you can also improve pre and post ankle surgery results.
And we can even take it further, Brad.
This is gonna help some athletes.
- Right, yeah, this is for- - And their performance.
- Right, after a real aggressive performance,
you can use this to help recover the muscles.
And it's all below the knee, in the calf muscles.
- And people think maybe that I'm so excited,
I'm tapping my foot.
No, this is doing it by itself.
And we'll show you in just a minute why that works.
- But it's a really neat device.
- Yeah.
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Next week, we again are giving away something,
starting on Monday, actually.
- Oh yes. - Yeah,
we're gonna be giving away five TENS units.
And those are great for controlling your pain
or giving you some relief to your pain.
- Without using opioids- - Without using drugs.
And so, it's really exciting.
There's so many things that excite me, Brad, now.
- Well, you were excitable when you were young, too,
weren't you? - Yeah, that's right.
(Bob chuckles)
All right, so what do we got here, Brad?
- Okay, we got the geko circulation device.
- We're not sure if it's, I think it's geko.
- Geko. - I don't know.
It's G-E-K-O. - Right.
And, you know, they've put a lot of research
into these devices,
and it's really something, I think,
that is going to come along-
(overhead page)
- Well, we just got announcement
on our intercom. - Maybe they need
one of these. - That's right,
maybe they do too.
- But I think they're gonna be used more and more,
particularly, you know, if you have an ankle surgery,
and you're all swelling up,
and you cannot have surgery with it swollen.
You can't walk on it,
you got one of those big casts on it,
the back slab, plaster cast.
This is ideal for that,
so you can get some muscles moving,
get the circulation and get that edema down,
so you can have surgery,
and they've done studies on it,
up to two days earlier, which is significant.
- So basically someone hurts their ankle,
breaks their ankle or whatever.
They're waiting for the swelling to go down,
'cause they can't do the surgery.
And this pushes it forward that much faster,
greatly, a lot more.
So you can obviously get back to your life a lot quicker
if you can- - And then you use it
after the surgery as well,
because it improves the circulation.
You know, you're not able to walk,
you're not able to move much,
but you need some movement going on to get the circulation.
And you're gonna see just how.
But that way, the wound can heal faster.
So it's pre-surgery as well as post-surgery.
- I think you could extend this
way beyond just ankle surgeries, right?
This would be anybody who's in bed after surgery,
and they're worried about the blood clot,
which is a huge issue.
If you don't know, what can happen is
you can develop a deep vein thrombosis,
which is a blood clot in your calf.
It can dislodge,
and can actually go up into your lungs,
and it can actually kill you.
- It's life threatening.
- And we brought up that before,
there was that reporter in the Gulf War
that actually died, David something.
And he was driving, (Brad laughs)
he was riding in tanks,
and he actually developed a blood clot, and it actually-
- There's not a lotta room in those tanks,
and he was in there- - Not moving.
- Not able to move, and yeah, it was real unfortunate.
- So we should bring up the differences here,
right, Brad? - Sure.
- So this one's, the geko is is FDA approved,
and it's a little bit stronger.
It has a up button and a down button, as far as intensity.
And this one is the one that hospitals would use.
But they also have the one for athletic recovery.
And this is basically the Firefly.
And this is just a real simple one.
You just push the button on and it goes.
- They're very similar,
but this is a little bit simpler to use.
It doesn't have quite as much power,
but still enough for that recovery of muscle,
so you don't get the sore muscles
after an aggressive workout.
- Right, and also, some of the athletes,
and I guess they're using it with a lotta Olympic athletes,
and they're using a lot with professional athletes.
But even, like, when they're riding on a plane,
which is a big deal for- - Right,
'cause they're always riding on a plane.
- They're always riding on a plane.
Should we show how to put it on, Brad?
- Right, let's, yeah, give a little demonstration here.
- Again, my foot is not moving.
I'm not voluntarily moving my foot.
I dunno if you can see this down here, Liz.
It's going on its own.
I've got the device hooked up to me.
But Brad's gonna show you where to hook it up.
- So, this is where you need
a little knowledge on the anatomy.
You're gonna go to the fibula.
And you go to the head of the fibula,
which is that bump right here, it's blue.
- [Bob] So there's two bones in the lower extremity.
You got the tibia and the fibula.
The fibula is the little thin bone
on the outside of your leg.
- [Brad] We're gonna show a little leg today, Bob.
Yeah, we're gonna really gross 'em out.
So you find this, which is right here.
- [Bob] It's the big bump you feel sticking out there-
- Right there. - On the lower part.
- [Brad] And you're gonna put that, there's some lines,
so you put that right underneath there.
And you put it this way, not this way.
This is all spelled out.
And by the way, this is a device that the layperson
is not going to buy and put it on without help.
You're gonna have to have someone who's trained,
professional- - Athlete trainer,
physical therapist, or somebody in the hospital.
But for the first time,
I would say you probably wanna have
someone that's a little bit knowledgeable.
- [Brad] Once you get it set up and you understand it,
what happens is- - So that line
goes right over the fibula?
- [Brad] Right, just underneath there.
And then the longer section,
what it does is it aligns up the two electrodes
over the top of the perineal nerve.
And it stimulates that nerve, which in turn stimulates,
I'm not gonna go through all the muscles that it kicks in,
but you'll see. - Perineal nerve
basically turns your foot out,
and that's what you see my foot doing.
It's like it's.
And you know, I questioned, Brad,
whether or not I could sleep with this.
And I think I probably could.
But you said it has to be on for how many hours a day?
- 16, you know, not more than 24.
After 24, you take it off and you simply throw it away.
- So for the eight hours I'm sleeping, do I have it off?
I suppose it depends on, you know,
they might have it on during that time.
- Right, yep. - Sure.
- What you tolerate.
You can see right here, they make a nice strap.
I have one on this side.
This is the Firefly model.
And if you're gonna be active with it,
you put this on, so it make sure it stays there.
- Stays in place. - You know,
if there's perspiration, whatnot,
you wanna make sure that it doesn't come off.
- [Bob] So this is a one time use?
- Yeah, you throw it away.
It's disposable. - Gotcha.
- You know, the kit comes with a number of 'em.
I think I had eight of 'em in there total.
So yours is kicking out right now, too.
- I'm just gonna turn mine up
each time I press the button here,
and see if I can get it up any stronger.
Nope, looks like I'm-
- So that's about where you're at.
- Yep.
Now, this is the other model
that is designed to get a little bit stronger.
- [Bob] One thing we found often that works better
when you're pushing the button
is to use your fingernail and push it down.
- On this red? - That one, yeah.
- The Firefly is not the same. - Pretty simple.
- But in this, I can clearly see
I've got the Firefly up as high as it'll go,
and you can see my ankle's kickin' away.
And I've got this on up,
and I think I can go a little higher.
And ooh, there.
It really, yeah, it's kinda fun.
I actually enjoy gettin' stimulated like this.
- You like the gettin' zapped.
I had a girl in my class, too, my physical therapy class,
that liked getting electrocuted.
- Well, this isn't electrocuted-
- Well, I mean- - That's a strong term.
- Okay. (Brad chuckles)
She liked getting some electrical stimulation.
So let's just summarize, Brad, real quickly.
It's gonna help prevent a blood clot.
It's gonna help with athletic recovery.
It's gonna reduce the time needed to prepare for surgery,
'cause it gets the swelling down rapidly.
And it can be used for helping to heal wounds, right?
- Right. - I mean,
'cause it's gonna get more blood flow there.
- And it's all through the same concept
of getting muscles to contract
so that you increase the venous flow.
That's the flow coming back up to the system,
not the arterial flow.
- And they found out it was 32%, I do remember that number,
32% more venous flow.
But on a microcytic blood flow level, was 400% improvement.
I just pulled that outta my head.
- This has really been studied a lot.
And they give all the information in the packet.
They've got one of the little thumbnail
you put in your computer and they'll,
flash drive, flash drive.
I was gonna get off there.
- Mr. Computer here.
- (chuckle) Anyways, it shows you the studies.
And if you're one of those type of people,
you really want to get into how it was researched,
it goes into detail.
- Good for diabetic wounds too,
because you're gonna get more blood flow again.
And some of those wounds can be really stubborn
in trying to heal 'em, so.
A lotta uses.
If you're the layperson,
you may wanna bring it up to your physician
or your health professional, to say-
- If you just experienced an ankle fracture,
and you're trying to figure out what you can do,
this would be a good video.
And maybe the doctor is not familiar with it,
or someone in that hospital isn't,
and say, oh wow, we can use this.
- Well, Brad and I are,
what we're accustomed to is seeing the compression socks
and stuff like that,
which are real pain in the butt.
I mean, you try to put those things on, and-
- Right, and sometimes,
if you've got an ankle fracture that's real painful,
you're just not gonna tolerate-
- You're not gonna be able to do it.
- Or you have one of those back slab, plaster casts on.
- Well that's what I think is cool.
The cast can be on, and this could be put, like you said,
right over the top of the, and it can be-
- Goes above it, yep.
- And getting the movement there, so.
Really cool device.
It really is fun to be living in this arena of technology,
this life of technology.
- Yeah, the medical field continues to advance.
- All right, thanks everybody for watchin'.