parkinsons muscle contracture

[tracycase]

Hi
I am new to SomaSimple and I'm posting this thread looking for some help. I am a massage therapist and have been working with oncology patients for years. I also see many athletes in my practice. I have experience with PNF, Active Isolated streching and kinesio taping.

I recently visited a man in a nursing home that had advanced Parkinsons disease. He is not being followed by PT at this time. His legs are extremely contracted. Feet are plantar flexed and inverted. Knees are flexed and unable to extent. Contracted at hip flexors. I tried massage and many streches. I was able to see some results but I know that unless he gets daily help, his condition will continue to worsen. I was wondering if anyone had tried using kinesio tape on someone with neuro disorders like this. I would think that it help but I can't find anything on taping this type of situation or if it has been tried.

[Diane]

Hi Tracy, welcome to SS. :)
Have you tried skin stretch with him? it might be useful. If you could get his skin to soften a bit, perhaps at least one densely innervated bit of him would send back less noise to his brain... medial sides of the ankles/feet/heels might be a place to start, to see if you can get the feet to thaw out a bit (skin stretch over the plantar and saphenous nerves).
About using kinesio tape, his skin should be capable of handling it first, or else the tape might damage it. I have seen nothing out there so far on use of kinesio tape on people in nursing homes.

[Sarah]

Hi Tracy,

Glad you found the site and posted your question! It was very nice meeting you in the kinesiotaping course this weekend. Having very little experience with Parkinson's patients personally, I thought this would be a good place for you to seek treatment strategies for this patient.

Barrett and others, what is your experience with ideomotor activity in patients with Parkinson's, if any? How do the changes in the basal ganglia affect ideomotion? The instructor at the kinesiotaping course does a treatment called Washburn technique, which was developed by Caryl Washburn, an occupational therapist and myofascialist. The instructor demonstrated on me, and lo and behold, it is light touch and very similar in apppearance to Simple Contact, however the deep model is myofascial instead of physiological. All that aside, it got me thinking. The instructor did mention that she had used this Washburn technique on a patient with Parkinson's with good results. That's what made me curious. Any thoughts?

(I recommended this site to the instructor as well if she is looking for a deep model for why her treatments work.)

Sarah Case (no relation to Tracy) :)

[Barrett Dorko]

I saw perhaps twenty people over the years with a primary diagnosis of this sort. I recall helping most, but I'm convinced that I was only successful in reducing the abnormal neurodynamic they suffered from concurrently. Their pain was reduced and their tolerance for positioning and movement was enhanced, as far as I could tell. I especially remember some very grateful caregivers amongst the spouses and children sitting in on the sessions.

My question: When does someone with the neurologic disorder of Parkinson's (and others) cross the line? When do they possess too much dysfunction to recover if active movement is necessary?

My answer: You can't know until after you initiate care.

[Sarah]

Barrett,

Makes sense, thanks. I don't know how to link another thread, but there was one here titled Pain and Parkinson's disease that had some good information too. Can anyone teach me how to link?

Sarah

[Diane]

Hi Sarah,
First, you can use the search function to find the thread you want. (Look in the darker yellow part of the top banner for the word "search" and then click on it.)

The search engine will provide you with some threads to choose from. Once you have found the thread you want, click on it and its page will come up. Copy the url, then come back to this thread and paste it here.

Let me know if you need more help. :)

Tracy, feel free to check out the Welcome forum (http://www.somasimple.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=126) - perhaps you can introduce yourself there, let us know a bit more about your work.

[Sarah]

Ok, here goes:

http://www.somasimple.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1821&highlight=parkinsons

[Sarah]

That's good, but how do I make it look like you did with the Welcome forum??

[Diane]

Good work Sarah. :)
So, you would like to make it look clean?


1. Put your link down:
http://www.somasimple.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1821&highlight=parkinsons

2. In front of it, type [ url=
with no space. Behind it, put a square bracket, ]

3. Add a completer, [ /url ] but with no spaces.

4. In the zone between the ] and the [ , type in whatever text you want. Here's an example, with spaces added to make the text (colored for emphasis in this example) visible.
[ url= http://www.somasimple.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1821&highlight=parkinsons ] Sarah's thread on Parkinson's [ /url ]

5. When this little code is typed up without any spaces, what you will see is: Sarah's thread on Parkinson's (http://www.somasimple.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1821&highlight=parkinsons )

Another way to do it is to just click on the link icon, the little picture that looks like a planet earth with a paperclip-like chain link in front of it, and enter the url in the drop down box. In this case you would have the text, Sarah's thread on Parkinson's , highlighted. Then it will hyperlink all by itself. (Or should. I do my own code typing usually.)

Don't worry if you can't figure it out immediately, although you probably will; it took me years and lots of emails with Jon to finally learn how to do this. :rolleyes:

[Sarah]

Ok,

Sorry to hijack this thread with programming questions....

Pain and Parkinsons (http://www.somasimple.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1821&highlight=parkinsons)

Diane, you're a good teacher.

Sarah

[Diane]

Sarah, you're a fast learner! :)

[Randy Dixon]

Sarah,

Where did you take your Kinesiotape course this weekend? My wife attended one in Austin. Her skin is sore all over.

[tracycase]

I attended a course in South Holland , IL. (Chicago) One tip they gave at the seminar was to rub a very thin coat of Milk of Magnesia over the skin for those who are sensitive to the tape.

[Diane]

Randy, tell your wife to use about one-tenth of the amount of tape used in those seminars! Also, it must be peeled off very slowly - the skin needs to be pulled down away from the tape, not the tape off the skin. Done that way, removal (at least) is painless. Milk of Magnesia? Cool idea.

[Sarah]

Yes, Tracy beat me to it...the course was in the Chicago area. I have sensitive skin as well and did not react to the tape until I wore it for a couple of days. I thought that the Milk of Magnesia idea was cool too, but have yet to try it. You are supposed to put a very thin layer on the skin, then let it dry, then apply the tape. And remind people, if they shower with the tape on, not to use a blow dryer to dry it quicker, as the heat will cause the adhesive to get more sticky and irritate the skin.

So far, I've played with the tape on a handful of patients....and coworkers...and people in the waiting room (just joking, but I was tempted). It seems like a good way to have dermoneuromodulation all day! We shall see.

Tracy, what did you think of the course? Did any of the ideomotor stuff I said make sense? I was really trying not to offend the instructor, but also wanted to give a more plausible explanation for the Washburn technique.

Sarah

[Jon Newman]

Jon's taping tip #12


I tried a four inch length of tape with the width of the tape spanning my maxilla to my mandible. It seemed to have a very positive effect on everyone around me.

[EricM]

I'd like to see the rest of the tips in that series Jon.

I've been using Kinesiotape for about a year now and only maybe once did anyone ever react to it, and even then it was just a mild itch. It's supposed to be hypoallergenic isn't it? It always amazes me how well it sticks and then how easily it does come off. Perhaps too much tape pulled off too aggressively are the things to avoid.

[tracycase]

Sarah,
Yes the ideomotor disscussion you had with me made lots of sense. I will try to take a workshop in the near future to learn more. As far as the workshop went, I wasn't too impressed. I believe in the kinesio tape --I've been using it for a year with very positive results- but I think the workshop fell short. The knowledge of the instructor was not what I would think it should have been. Thank God you were there to add to it!

[Sarah]

Tracy.

Unfortunately the class was perhaps too knowledgeable for the instructor. Most of them had already had prior experience with kinesiotape, like yourself. It was new to me, but the anatomy, biomechanics, physiology and manual skills are things that I am comfortable teaching. I am also what you'd call an "insufferable know-it-all" at times. :)

I hope you can get to a Simple Contact course soon. It would be well worth it for your clients, and perhaps even benefit your client with Parkinson's disease.

Sarah