|
As seen in
the St.
Louis
Post-Dispatch….
Water works
By Amy
Bertrand
Published: Monday, Feb. 16 2004
Say you were injured playing your favorite sport and had to have surgery on
your knee. Now think of the countless hours of painful rehabilitation you
face
just to get your knee working again. What if there was a way to rehabilitate
your knee in less time and with less pain?
Or maybe you suffer from fibromyalgia or some other disorder that makes even
the lightest touch painful. What if there was a way to get your muscles back
in
working order without all the pain?
Well, there is. It's water therapy.
Using water to rehab injuries and ailments is both old and new. Greeks and
Romans in ancient times used water to help them rehabilitate after sporting
events, but it's only caught on recently in modern times. When NASA started
doing research on weightlessness in water in the 1960s, people started
realizing the scientific benefits of water therapy.
"Water can really help most patients," says Jan Pratt,
physical
therapist and owner of Aquatic Fitness Inc. in Creve Coeur and O'Fallon, Mo.
"Using water is faster and better and offers less pain for the patient.
For
years physical therapists were referred to as physical terrorists or physical
torturists. Water isn't that way - it's fun. And it has a powerful
effect."
Just ask Steve Rainey, 45, of O'Fallon, Mo. After his third, and most
invasive,
back surgery, his doctor recommended water therapy.
"I just couldn't believe the difference it made," he says.
"I'm farther along
now (five months after the surgery) than I ever was at the end of the others.
When I did regular land therapy it seemed like I hurt all the time."
With water therapy, many patients are able to get back to movement earlier,
and
with less pain and without stressing the parts that are healing. You can
start
treatment one or two days after a sprain or strain and two to 10 days after
surgery; compare this with five to seven days for a sprain or strain and two
to
four weeks after surgery for treatment on land, Pratt says. Of course, an
open
wound would prohibit immediate water therapy, though in some cases a special
bandage can be used.
"The thing that's good about water is that, whereas exercising on land
requires
weight bearing, in water, you can start water walking and not bear very much
weight almost right away," says Bess Maxwell, who has a doctoral degree
in
exercise physiology and is executive director of Show-Me Aquatics &
Fitness in
St. Charles. "Water exercise is more comfortable. A person can gradually
walk
smoother, practice stepping up and down, a lot earlier on water than on
land."
Watsu
Water therapy with a different twist also worked for Susan Staat, 51, of
Arnold.
Staat has suffered from fibromyalgia for years. Fibromyalgia, an
arthritis-related condition characterized by generalized muscular pain and
fatigue, affects different people in different ways; for Staat, the feeling
was
similar to flulike symptoms in her joints. "There were days I couldn't
even put
my feet on the floor, it hurt so bad."
She was in so much pain that the slightest touch affected her, and a
traditional land massage, though beneficial, was extremely painful. Her
husband
read about a form of water therapy called Watsu.
Watsu is a sort of Shiatsu massage in the water, a sequence of gentle
movements
and stretches as you are held in warm water that relaxes your body, resulting
in greater flexibility and freedom.
Staat thought she'd give it a try, so she called Kathleen Christ, who has
performed close to 6,000 Watsu treatments at her St. Louis Aquatic Healing
Arts
Center in Creve Coeur.
"She puts me in a very relaxed state, and I'm just lifeless, and she
gives me a
deep, deep massage, the kind of massage I'm unable to do on a table,"
Staat
says. "It would be just too painful. In the water, I don't feel the
pressure."
After four years of therapy, Staat says she's noticed a huge change.
"I feel so good now. I was really in bad shape. I was in bed most of the
time.
Now, I'm very active. I cut the grass; I do a lot." In fact, she's been
able to
cut in half the number of pills she takes to control her fibromyalgia.
"She was almost not functioning before," says Christ. "Now she
has her life
back 100 percent."
Christ started the center in 1997 after reading an article about the benefits
of Watsu. At the time she was a massage therapist, and Watsu "made so
much
sense to me."
After selling two of her businesses, she renovated the downstairs of her home
into a Watsu area, a massage area and office. While that was going on, she
went
to California to study Watsu and came back a believer that it could heal
people.
Watsu works for several reasons, she says. First, the warm water is hypnotic.
"It's essential for anyone, especially a super Type A personality,
because it
gets the mind to relax. The body can heal itself when it's left to its own
devices, but the mind gets in the way."
The warm water then allows Christ to stretch and move the body. "The
greater
freedom of movement it encourages creates a modality that can affect every
level of our being," she says.
Freeing the spine in a weightless environment is the cornerstone of a Watsu
session. The therapist supports the client in water while gently rocking and
stretching the back and limbs. The head stays above water in Watsu; for
greater
effect, patients can try Wassertanzen - essentially the same thing, just with
the head underwater.
Why water works
During traditional water therapy and Watsu, the water is heated to body
temperature. The warm water, says Christ, allows for a soothing of the mind
as
well as greater muscle movement.
Maxwell says warm water helps decrease pain, "kind of along the lines of
a
heating pad. It helps the tissues become more flexible."
Water is an ideal rehabilitation tool for several reasons, Pratt says.
First is buoyancy. When you are immersed in water there is less gravity and
less compression on the spine and other parts of the body. "Thus,
someone just
standing in water often has zero pain level without even having to
move."
Maxwell agrees: "The buoyant properties of water are what make it so
special.
So in essence, a 180-pound person can be in the water chest-deep and only be
30
percent of his weight. The gravity pushing against his joints just isn't
there."
Water's hydrostatic pressure is also a reason it's a great tool. The body
feels
compression from all sides. The physiological effects of this include a
decrease in swelling.
Finally, the ability to add movement adds a new dimension. Water is 12 times
denser than air, Pratt says, so the resistance (if you move swiftly enough)
is
great for rebuilding muscles. Plus, you can use more functional movements,
working specific muscles in the water.
In addition, therapists can also use the water for cardiovascular training. A
patient may not be able to get on a treadmill just yet, but can
"jog" against
wave currents in the water and build up cardiovascular endurance.
"It's a way you can build endurance without any damage to the
spine," says
Jennifer Freeling, a physical therapist at Aquatic Fitness. "It's
virtually
impossible to get injured in the water."
And injury prevention and rehabilitation is the main goal for these
therapists.
"In every case our role is to help that person get as much movement as
possible
to improve quality of life through exercise," Maxwell says. "We
help them with
functional ability - like walking, sitting, standing, things you count on to
get around - and we count on everybody having fun."
Water therapy helps many conditions
Aside from injury and surgery rehabilitation, water therapy treatments are
recommended for the following conditions:
Chronic pain
Arthritis
Neuromuscular disorders
Chronic headaches
Chronic fatigue
Hyperactivity
Autism
Sleep disorders
Anxiety disorders
Cerebral palsy
Multiple sclerosis
Spinal-cord injuries
Polio
Tourette's syndrome
Fibromyalgia
Parkinson's disease
Stroke
Muscular dystrophy
Sources: Kathleen Christ, Bess Maxwell
For more information:
St. Louis Aquatic Healing Center
11970 Rocky Drive, Creve Coeur
More info: 314-432-5228; www.watsu1.com
How much: One hour of Watsu or Wassertanzen is $105; you can get 1/2 hour for
$60
Aquatic Fitness Inc.
12539 Olive Boulevard, Creve Coeur, and 3404 East Terra Lane, O'Fallon,
Mo.
More info: 314-205-2006 (Creve Coeur) and 636-970-0336 (O'Fallon);
www.mdnetlink.com/aquafitness
How much: Patients need a physician's referral; insurance covers the therapy
Show-Me Aquatics & Fitness
118 Diekamp Lane, St. Charles, but the therapists use the pools at the
St. Charles and O'Fallon, Mo., YMCAs
More info: 636-896-0999 or www.showmeaquatics.org
How much: Patients need a physician's referral; insurance covers the therapy
Reporter Amy Bertrand
E-mail: abertrand@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8284
|