With Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte making headlines (and quite a splash!) during the 2012 Summer Olympics, the pool has been on the minds of many. However, as Team USA strives to reach their goal of Olympic gold over in London, there are many right here in the mid-Atlantic region striving to reach a different goal in the pool – a successful completion of aquatic therapy.
Let’s jump in. When you walk into our ATI clinic in North East, MD, (or one of the 12 other East Coast clinics that offer aquatic therapy), you’ll find a “traditional” physical therapy experience – plinth tables surrounded by some exercise equipment, mats, stretching bands, and more. But, if you follow the smell of chlorine, you’ll find a whole new world: patients and PTs who swapped their workout gear for a bathing suit, fully immersed in a pool sprinkled with flippers, noodles, and a variety of other props.
The “why” behind the water
Karen Dow, a physical therapy assistant and certified pool expert at our North East, MD, location, gave us a peek into her world working in aquatic therapy. As she says, aquatic therapy is appropriate for almost anyone (as long as you’re tall enough to stand up in the shallow end!). Patients head into the pool to rehabilitate a variety of injuries (mostly backs, knees, and shoulders), as the buoyancy of the water can help them perform exercises they may not be able to do on land.
“We don’t live in water, so the goal is always to get them back onto land,” Karen says. “But, any combination of aquatic and land therapy may help get a patient back to living life – and that’s the goal.” To get her patient back to “living life,” Karen invokes her former training as a fitness instructor and personal trainer to develop personalized programs for each patient. A huge proponent of quality over quantity, Karen tries to explain the “why” behind each stretch and exercise so that patients can fully understand why the form must be correct to achieve maximum results. For her, crafting treatment plans are a creative outlet, a way to blend together the right combination of stretches, exercises, and props, to help a patient get results.
There’s very little Karen doesn’t love about her pool and her patients. They certainly aren’t in an Olympic-sized pool, so there’s very little personal space. But, as Karen says, that’s just a catalyst to help her form relationships with her patients and her patients form friendships with one another.
“In the water, the patients have an immediate connection,” Karen says. “They’re all in there with each other, and they start to talk – about their surgeries, their recoveries, their lives – and begin to use each other as a resource.”