Balance is essential for performing many daily tasks and staying upright against gravity. You need good balance to stand up, walk, stretch, climb stairs, or to get something from a high shelf. These activities are usually easy to accomplish when you’re young and agile. However, as you begin to age, it may become more apparent that your balance and stability is deteriorating and it’s more difficult to do these things. Balance retraining helps to reeducate neuromuscular pathways that in essence strengthen and stabilize core muscles so you can continue to do things longer than you may have otherwise. Balance retraining is functional fitness or neurorehabilitation and can include exercises involving the visual (eyes), vestibular (inner ear) and somatosensory (muscles and joints) systems. This can be something difficult like standing on an unstable surface while doing Yoga poses or something more simple like walking heel to toe, and vibration therapy. The neurological based exercises the team at Neurolink Chiropractic teaches you are completely specific to the neurological imbalances found on a physical examination.
What is Balance Retraining?
Balance retraining is a type of neurorehabilitation therapy that helps improve the patient’s stability and reduces their risk of falls and subsequent injury. This type of functional neurology care is great for elderly people, patients with peripheral neuropathy and patients who are looking to improve their activity skill, such as golf or tennis. At Neurolink Chiropractic, we can help patients continue doing the everyday activities they enjoy as they age. Balance retraining therapy incorporates neurological based exercises that strengthen the legs and core muscles that keep you upright and out of the emergency room.
Balance Retraining Exercises
There are some simple exercises you can start doing at home on your own to improve your coordination and make daily tasks a bit easier. Some of these exercises include:
- Tightrope Walking: Walk heel to toe on a flat surface. Act like you’re walking on a tightrope and take at least 15 steps. You can make this more difficult by turning or rotating your head (chin to shoulder) back and forth while walking.
- Flamingo Stand: Stand on one foot with good posture. Use a chair if you’re feeling unsteady. Then raise the opposite foot for 15 seconds. Then alternate. Increase the difficulty by standing on an airex pad (foam cushion) or pillow while doing the exercise.
- Squats on a Bosu trainer, Airex pad, vibration plate or half foam roller.
However, you should consult a chiropractor or functional neurologist before beginning a new regimen. If you struggle with balance, it’s important to ensure the exercises you attempt are safe and appropriate for you. A chiropractic neurologist can also assign you exercises to meet your specific goals.
Balance Assessment and Custom Care Plan
People of all ages and abilities use and benefit from balance retraining. That’s why it’s important we evaluate each patient and consider things like their abilities, physical limitations, previous health history and health care goals. This helps us determine which exercises should be incorporated into the care regimen, frequency, and treatments that should be used in correspondence with the balance retraining program.
Balance retraining exercises are highly adaptable and can be customized depending on coordination, strength, and infirmities. Middle-aged and geriatric patients may start to notice a decline in their eyesight, coordination, and range of motion. This age group may also be more at risk for diseases like Arthritis, Neuropathies and Osteoporosis, which can further complicate an exercise regimen due to mobility issues. That’s why Neurolink offers low-impact, high-result neurorehabilitation exercises. It can take time to recalibrate your balance, but if you stick to your custom care plan you’ll start to see improvements in no time!
Neurolink Chiropractic Balance Retraining
Nearly 36 million adults fall every year, and nearly 3 million adults must be treated in the emergency room due to the falls. If you want to avoid becoming a statistic, consider balance retraining with Neurolink Chiropractic. Our chiropractors and functional neurologists will carefully examine your visual, vestibular, muscular and skeletal systems before customizing a balance retraining program. We utilize a CAPS System (Computerized Assessment of Postural Stability) which is a balance force plate that detects postural stability and gives you a Postural Stability Score. These results can help identify whether you are at risk of having a fall. Contact Neurolink today to schedule your first balance assessment and retraining session in order to improve your balance and quality of life.
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