Hydrotherapy services at Move Clinics

HYDROTHERAPY

Hydrotherapy uses the buoyancy
and resistive characteristics of
water to aid in injury rehabilitation.
The buoyancy provided by water
allows the amount of loading on
the body to be controlled and
easily progressed. This means
that you can exercise without
walking aids, using normal
movement patterns and gradually
load injured joints.

Resistance in water increases with
the speed and the surface area of
the object being moved. We can
use this to progressively increase
the load put on healing muscles,
tendons, ligaments joints and
bones.

Various pieces of equipment can
also be used to either increase
the resistance or to provide extra
floatation to make a movement
less difficult. This is very useful
following orthopaedic surgery
where minimal loading is placed
on healing tissue and increased
as healing progresses.

Another important property of
water is that pressure increases
with depth. Often following injury
and/or surgery we are faced with
significant swelling. By
mobilising in water there is an
effect of muscle activity pushing
fluid back to the heart and also
the higher water pressure at the
feet pushes fluid upwards
through veins and the lymphatic
system.

The ability to carry out activities
with normal technique also
reduces the stress placed on
other parts of the body helping in
the prevention of "knock on
effects" to other joints and
reduces muscle weakness from
inactivity during healing.