Missy Eisenhauer DPT, ATC, CGFI, CTPS
Owner of Physical Therapy Specialists of Tennessee
Hi my name is Missy Eisenhauer and I'm a physical therapist. I've had my own practice since 2011 but I've been around a physical therapy setting for about 28 years now.
The Problem
The biggest problem that I see when new surgery patients come in is that their knee is swollen, that makes it very painful, and they're apprehensive to let someone else touch the knee and especially try to bend the knee. They've just had their surgery and there's a lot of increased fluid that causes the lack of range of motion. It stimulates or more hyper-stimulates the nerves and so everything is pretty much on edge. So it makes the patient a little nervous. It makes it harder to get them to relax and then that affects us being able to get a good stretch on them.
It's important to have the proper range of motion throughout the protocol so that they're making the appropriate gains and they're able to do things like get up and down stairs correctly and have a proper heel to toe gate.
With the older methods that we used, it really put a lot of a control factor with the physical therapist gaining the range and helping push them. We needed something that would allow the patient to relax and be in control and help them help themselves.
Why NeeHab Helps Physical Therapists & Patients Alike
The greatest thing about the NeeHab is that it's basically a second set of hands for me.
The patient is in control. They're able to work on pushing themselves, which is very important, but then it allows me to be freed up to go in and do a little bit of soft tissue work, maybe joint mobilizations. I've even been able to use an ultrasound device, which provides a deep heat while they are stretching themselves. And again, it holds them in a static stretch position and allows those tissues, which are very thick, to relax and get a more permanent stretch.
I think the NeeHab is going to be a game changer for everyone because the therapists are going to be able to have these available in the clinic so that they can work directly with the patient while they're using the NeeHab, but then it also allows the patient to have an inexpensive device that they can use at home and that will help increase their results and overall the rehab will be much faster.
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