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Well being and rehabilitation in water
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THE PRINCIPLES:
Rehabilition in water includes physical and rehabilitative activity performed in this medium. It can be active or passive rehabilitation, instrumental or simply constituted by free-body physical esercises. There is no need to know how to swim!
Water’s properties used range from the principles of hydrodynamics to the ludic effect found in the physical contact with this element.
More than two thousand years ago, Archimedes recognized that a body completely or partially immersed in a liquid, receives an upward push equal to the weight of the displaced liquid, which acts in contrapposition to the force of gravity and makes an immersed body lighter.
A human body immersed in water up to the neck’s base weighs only 10% of what it would on dry land; its weight rises to approximately 40% when immersed up to the chest.
Thus corporeal weight puts a lesser load on the spine and on the articulations, creating the safety and ease typical of exercises performed in water.
The push to float, in other words the upward force, influences movement in water in three different ways:
•MOVEMENT IS FACILITATED BY THE FORCE OF GRAVITY WHEN DIRECTED UPWARDS
•MOVEMENT IS SUSTAINED BY THE PUSH TO FLOAT WHEN DIRECTED HORIZONTALLY
•MOVEMENT IS CONTRASTED BY THE PUSH TO FLOAT WHEN DIRECTED DOWNWARDS
.MOVEMENT IN WATER IS ALSO INFLUENCED BY THE MEDIUM'S COHESION, ADHESION AND VISCOSITY
THE RESISTANCE OPPOSED BY WATER TO MOVEMENT INSIDE IT IS 12 TIMES MORE THAN ON DRY LAND
The bigger resistance encountered performing esercises or movement in water is rehabilitation's most important factor.
The resistance opposed by water acts on the patient’s body on the vertical plane (surface tension) and on the horizontal plane (frontal resistance).
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PRINCIPAL ADVANTAGES of the ACQUATER METHOD
The ACQUATER method is a treatment in low still water, which is the most practical way to utilize water in rehabilitation.
A person standing upright in 120 cm (4 feet) of water can exploit the gravitational effect (reduction of weight) as well as the hydrodynamic factors with numerous advantages.
MINIMAL IMPACT
This is the fundamental point of rehabilitation in water. When a person walks in 120 cm of water, in reality this person applies only a small part of his/her weight on the lower limbs.
TOTAL TRAINING
In a common gym, with or without tools, when a person is exercising only certain specific areas of the body meet resistance in relation to the type of exercise. Knee flexure does not find resistance nor contribute to the rehabilitative process. If the exercises are performed in water, whose resistance is omnidirectional, the whole range of movement contributes to rehabilitation, with better,more comprehensive results.
SIMPLICITY AND EASE
The water environment allows the individual to control the intensity of exercise by changing its speed. This is a very important aspect, especially when dealing with persons who are weakly motivated, aged or handicapped.
PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES:
Water alleviates pain and articular rigidity, allowing rehabilitation to begin sooner and progress more rapidly than in a conventional gym (only after surgical intervention it is necessary to wait until the wounds are healed).
The ACQUATER method is a treatment in low still water. Making easier (and cheaper) the organization of intervention; a single therapist can instruct and control the water activity of 6 or more patients at the same time without needing to immerse him/herself, if not rarely.
An added advantage of exercise in a group setting is the encouragement of harmony, self-sustenance and motivation.
There is no need to know how to swim: one can stand on his/her feet without any fear or problems improving concentration on the exercise.
In a pool with low water a great variety of exercises typical of gyms may be performed: deambulation, bending of the knees, climbing some steps, walking on the Tapis Roulant, practicing skiing and skating. No special previous training is needed.
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APPLICATIONS of the ACQUATER METHOD:
REHABILITATION
POST THRAUMATIC INTERVENTION
OBESITY, RECONDITIONING
SPORT - ELDERS
HANDICAPPED - FITNESS-TRAINING
ACQUATER for post-thraumatic or post-operatory REHABILITATION:
Activity in water plays a role of capital importance in the rehabilition of patients from pains in the lower tract of the spine (lumbo-sacral pains – LBP low back pain ).
Lesions suffered through work-related accidents:
deserve a particular mention because the patient usually receives an indemnity for the period in which (s)he is absent from the job. This reduces for some workers the motivation to return to work, and a realistic reactivation schedule should be established for an early and safe return of worker to workplace.
Results of road accidents or similar:
there are other factors (such as loss of physical form, rigidity of the trunk, obesity) which play an important role in reducing or even preventing a successful rehabilitation of some such subjects.
Articular Fractures:
Water therapy – because of its medium’s low impact and the intrinsic safety of the exercises - is ideal for lesions to load-bearing articulations, whether in the case of isolated lesion or of multiple thraumas.
Poly-thraumatized Subjects:
These cases usually are the result of road accidents or other especially serious ones. Poly-thraumatic lesions are usually bilateral and involve the upper limbs,or the lower ones, and sometimes all of them.
These patients often frustrate the imagination and the resources of the more “conventional” therapists. Their treatment in water solves most problems and makes it possible for them to actively re-establish their functionalities.
ACQUATER FOR THE TRAINING AND MAINTENANCE OF ELDERS
The utility for elders of exercise in water with ACQUATER equipment can be easily demonstrated; they are classified as follows:
YOUNG ELDERS (up to about 65 years)
ELDERS (up to about 75 – 80 years)
GREAT ELDERS (over 80 years of age)
Considering health conditions and level of autonomy of the elders, the healthy ones are fortunately the majority; then there are those elders who are coping with a more or less marked process of debilitation (typically arthrosis) and finally those who must face serious decay (ostheoporosis, dementia, neurological problems, etc...)
Naturally there must be preventive activities, as well as those meant to cure, recuperate, re-activate and rehabilitate in particular:
Subjects affected by ostheoporosis:
these patients are in great part elders and some present themselves for treatment bearing vertebral fractures due to compression. They may be helped by an active but light program in the pool, planned to increase their strength compatibly with tolerance to pain. For these patients the reinforcement exercises on the ground can prove painful and usually they must be postponed for long periods until the pain has subsided. Such delays produce further weakness and loss of the trunk’s flexibility and are eliminated by resorting to a water based exercise program.
Arthritic patients:
Acquatic rehabilitation is recommended by the Arthritis Foundation for Rheumatoid Arthritis and Ostheoarthritis. These patients benefit from the ease in extending their articulations in water by performing reinforcement exercises without fearing pain and overload to deformed articulations.
ACQUATER’s PROPOSAL is aimed at:
•REHABILITATION CENTERS
•THERMAL CENTERS
•SENIOR CITIZEN CENTERS
•SPORT CENTERS
ACQUATER makes it possible to qualify and potentiate the services offered by Thermal Centers quickly, simply, and with extreme efficacy.
With ACQUATER the Thermal Center obtains a new image, and can increase the range of its services by offering them to the elderly, who may suffer from articular and muscular pain or simply wish to optimize their physical condition; they are also specially effective for accident victims and athletes, who can rapidly recuperate their form, even after thraumas.
To offer these services, a relatively small pool (even 35 – 40 sqm) is sufficient with a depth of only 120 cm (4 ft.).
Furthermore, ACQUATER can assist you through its partners to study on location the best solutions
- for construction
- for adaptation
- for the set-up
- for the best performance
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TAPIS ROULANT (Treadmill):
It is a rotating mechanical device requiring no electrical energy; the patient walks on a continuous rubber ribbon which moves on 25 stainlees steel rollers; its movement activates two paddle wheels situated on the unit’s sides to increase water resistance. The main difference from a normal walk in the pool is reduced impact on the heel.
In the usual deambulation in water resistance is met by the body when moving forward while the lower limbs fill a substantially static role, whereas on the Tapis Roulant, subsequently to the heel’s impact one observes a forward movement of the bust together with a backward movement of the lower limb which is in contact with the Tapis Roulant’s rubber ribbon.
This creates an additional resistance caused by the leg’s backward thrust and the rotation of the Tapis Roulant’s paddles.
The Tapis Roulant may also be employed to walk backwards, while sitting on the provided seat, with the body oriented in the opposite direction.
FREE PARALLEL BARS:
The patient holds his/her weight on the forearms which lean on the flat part of parallel bars; the tool is also equipped with a seat to allow exercise in a sitting position.
ROWING CYCLETTE
It is a device for hydrokinesitherapeutic exercise designed mainly to reinforce upper limbs; it consists in a seat which can be raised and lowered in water by the patient. The seat can be lowered until water will reach the chin, allowing a complete immersion of upper limbs and shoulders.
The tool is enriched by two paddles which allow a training similar to skiing, but limited to lower limbs; the patient, while performing a rotary motion with arms, activates a mechanism equipped with four winglets and obtains a complete training of shoulders, elbow(s) and hand(s). This exercise is performed frontwards and backwards.
SKATE
This tool simulates the bilateral movement found in high speed ice skating; extension of support movement may be adjusted into three different positions in relation to user's height and the freedom of lower limbs' motor amplitude, in particular that of the hips.
The patient holds onto a bar, exercising the abductor muscles of the leg being extended and at the same time the adductor muscles of the other leg. Furthermore, this unit allows its user to execute a scissorlike movement by opening and closing the legs simultaneously, reaching a good level of training for the hip adductor muscle groups.
SKI SIMULATOR
Like ther rest of our line, the ski simulator is constructed in very high grade stainless steel. Winglets attached to the foot supports increase resistance to longitudinal movement of the legs. Resistance to movement of upper limbs is also incremented by winglets attached to the risers just under the water’s surface.
This unit may be employed to exercise only the lower limbs (holding onto the fixed bar) or as an effective and complete ski simulator, with alternating movements of arms and legs which realize a total training for the body.
For patients with advanced shoulder lesions it is advisable to grasp the fixed bar and to limit exercise to the lower limbs only.
LADDER
It is a device to simulate the climbing of a ladder, which employs additional winglets attached to foot support to increase resistance. The Ladder may be employed in a sitting position to neutralize body weight.
Climbing stairs is an excellent exercise for the quadriceps and the hip extensor muscle groups. Resistance is created by fixed winglets.
This unit allows a person of average body size to flex the knees up to 90°with many possible variations; Winglet movement allows limitation of the exercise to the lower limbs without any incidence or pressure from body’s weight.
INCLINED STATIC PLANE
It is a large table with a platform attached to its lower side, on which the patient stands; its inclination is adjustable to adapt the device to patient’s heigth and water’s depth.and allow exercise in a semi-recumbent position.
The Inclined Static Plane is particularly useful for those patients who have undergone total hip surgery,to exercise with the hip in extended position. The patient lies on the unit to exercise the hip by flexure and abduction.
The unit is also equipped with a seat, for knee and shoulder rehabilitation.
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