♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists on the internet. ♪
- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we have the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Brad, today I wanna just show some
simple exercise you can do after having a stroke.
Seven exercises that you can do
in bed that are safe.
You know, there's no chance of you falling.
- Mhm
- Just kinda some basic ones to start with.
- Right. And this is for someone who's probably had
both their arm and leg fairly involved.
- Right.
- And they maybe can move 'em a little bit
but not like this.
- Not much there yet.
- Right. Yeah, early on.
- So this is representing the stroke side.
- The weak--
- The arm, the weak side.
- Mhm.
- Yep. Okay.
- Okay.
- Start off with number one.
I'll just take one pillow to start off with, Brad.
- Sure.
- Alright.
First thing you're doing
and you're gonna maybe need somebody to help.
Brad's gonna be the assistant.
But the first one you're gonna do is
I'm putting a strong leg up.
And then if I can get it up, we'll put the weak leg up.
But if I can't, you're gonna have to help me.
- Alright. So, up we go.
- Okay and then we're gonna start
with some rotations back and forth like this.
- Mhm
- And again, if it's gonna flop like this,
Brad may have to help.
- Right.
- And help me roll back and forth.
- Usually you can just sit on the bed right here
and only help as much as you need to, you know?
- Right.
- I'm gonna let go, hold, there you get it back up, Bob.
- Yep. And sometimes if it gets a little easier,
Brad can provide resistance.
- Sure. Push into me, Bob.
- You can, push, push, push
- Yeah, there we go.
And verbal cues, asking the person kinda helps out.
- And sometimes pushing down through the leg, right?
To give a little weight through the leg sometimes helps too.
- Now I'm gonna push in here.
- Yeah.
Alright, hat's exercise number one.
Number two.
Now you're gonna try to just actually spread the legs apart
and bring 'em back together again.
- We call it the clam shell.
- Yep. And again, you may need a little help
at some points on this.
Maybe you can just say, you know,
lower it slowly, if you can.
Don't just let it flop.
See, can you hold it?
Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it.
Stop it from falling.
- Now we're just working the one weak side.
- Yep.
- And this is gonna vary.
So you have to kind of work with the person.
- Right.
- Some, every patient is a little bit different
in what they do.
- Exactly.
Next one is bridging.
You may wanna start with just the strong leg,
do some bridging here, get some core workout.
And then you can go to doing both of them.
The same thing, you might have to hold it, Brad.
- Alright, as a matter of fact, a lot of times
the patient cannot get the leg up.
So you need some help to get to here.
- Right.
- And once they get to that position
might have to hold the feet.
- Yep.
- And then go ahead.
- Excellent. Yep.
- Right.
What I like to do is sit on their toes
gently, of course.
And then I'll pull this way.
- Yeah
- And you go up, up, up, up, Bob.
There you go.
- That's a great one to do.
- And that just helps a little bit.
- It's a great hint.
Alright.
What else are we missing here now?
Well then if you get really good
you may wanna do a single leg.
- Right, as this leg gets a little stronger,
then we put all the, all the gravity and resistance there.
- Right.
Alright, next one.
You're actually gonna take a couple pillows and put 'em
underneath the leg like this.
And to help kinda clear the foot like this
and put the knee into a little bit of flexion.
And you're gonna try to help
and see if you can bring that toe towards you.
- So right there is
that's all it is right there
but this knee should be up and bent just a little bit.
- Yeah you might even, more than this,
even if you can, Brad.
You might put more or-- bundle up.
Yep, like that. Yep.
- There is some neurological reasons for that.
We're not getting into it
but it is important to have a little bend in that knee.
And if this foot is not, go ahead,
just move it a little bit.
You know, if you're helping, you can help and hold it.
- Right.
Hold it, Bob, let it down slow.
There you go.
Pull up, up, up, up, up, up, up, and let it down slow.
Anything we do to get those muscles to wake up.
- And as much as you can, you know,
visually try to help the person.
If he can see it or she can see it
it's gonna help improve that ability to do that.
Alright, next one. We'll go to the arm now.
And basically again, we got the weak arm here
so you're gonna have the strong arm kind of
clasp the hand like this.
- Sure.
- Again, make sure you're not gonna fall outta bed here.
- Right.
- But it's good to follow with your eyes
and I'm gonna clasp the hand.
I'm gonna bring it up and over here.
- So making that diagonal from the right
and up over the left shoulder.
- It's nice, if you can turn down like this
but I don't want to get that complicated now.
- Right, right, this is--
- So this is the first step towards rolling.
So we start on the hip and we go up.
I'm watching with my head the whole time.
- And it's important to watch
because if you've had a stroke, what could happen is
they won't even, the person who had the stroke
won't know it, this hand will fall down.
And if you're not watching it, they won't know
that the arms there, their hands aren't connected
because they're so that the nerves aren't
connected to let that information be known.
- So you can also switch and go
on this side and go this way.
- Right.
- From that hip to this shoulder.
Again, I'm watching the whole time with my eyes.
Now what this leads to is
you can actually start doing rolling now.
And the easiest one to do is gonna be to first roll
to your weak side.
- [Brad] Sure.
- So I'm gonna put the strong leg up.
I'm gonna put the arm down on the strong side,
the strong hip, and I'm gonna go like this.
I'm gonna push with the leg and pull myself over like this.
- Make sure you're not too close
to the bed 'cause you don't wanna fall off.
- Yeah.
- If you've got someone to help.
- Yep. Someone there to help if you--
- That's a real good idea.
- So this is the nice first step towards rolling.
Now the one that's gonna be more difficult
is going towards the strong side.
'Cause now you're gonna have to have the weak side
up like this, down here, like this
and this has gotta push a little bit.
- Right.
- So you don't want to try this
until you got some push in this leg.
- Sure.
- So you're gonna bring it up over this way and push.
You're gonna roll over onto it.
- Right.
So he's pushing, you can see the hip come off the table.
Well, too far, I'm onto my mic here but
So that's the seven exercises you can do and start.
And it becomes functional
because you're learning how to roll outta bed.
- Right, exactly.
- And that's always the first step.
- Right, so I would say 10 repetitions of each is good.
It's gonna take you some time to get
through all those until you get used to your routine.
And there's a lot of neurological background
with the PNF that we didn't get into.
Unless if you're a therapist, you know it.
- You understand why we're doing these things,
but on our end you're just gonna have to trust us.
- Right.
- So, alright.
- Okay good luck with it.
- Yeah, good luck.