The physical therapist left me a message this morning... She mentioned that they did their
session with Occupational therapy today. The focus of their combo-session was to do a shoulder evaluation on Christy. They needed to evaluate how she's moving, Range of motion, strength & nerve tension. I had to look up nerve tension because I would only be guessing what that is. Tension in the nerve, I feel, is related to these other injuries Christy acquired from not moving in bed well for so long. The nerves may act like muscles in the sense that they shorten like when not used a lot. The other idea I had was that Christy suffered a brain injury. The brain and spinal cord make up the central nervous system & that is why Christy has nerve issues. Either way, there is
tension in the nerves (Nerves come from the spinal cord and are how you "feel". They sense hot, cold, pressure, pain, etc. I have a picture on the right of the nervous system in the body. The blue lines are nerves that move throughout your body. For the body to move again properly, the nervous system must have significant mobility. This is especially true in the extremities. The nerves in the arms and leg must bend around joints and allow for lengthening as the joints bend at sharp angles. If you can't move because the nerves can't lengthen, more tension on the nervous tissue can cause real damage. When the nerve is impaired it can cause excruciating pain (that's the symptom of nerve tension) and can limit movement.
They looked at Christy's spine to check for any irregular curvature of the spine (Scoliosis) and they did find a very minor bend in Christy's mid back due to tone. Tone is commonly talked about by the therapists, it is the contraction of the muscles. It helps maintain posture and it declines during REM (rapid eye movement- when you dream) sleep. It's different than "toning" up your muscles in gym exercise. Because of these contractions of muscles that Christy has causing the curve in her mid back, they have to focus their strengthening & stretching to try fix it.
She talked about Joint mobility. Specifically how the shoulder blade is moving. The right arm, where her fracture was, is barely moving at all right now. The Left shoulder blade (scapula) is weak but has good range of motion. Range of motion is shown on the left here in a picture of
this guy on the left. It is how high and low and well around the joint and arm can move. While I was looking for this picture, I found one with the tool that measures the angles of the legs that we talked about before. Range of motion is evaluated with this instrument called a ganiometer. The ganiometer measures angles of joint motion. They are going to work on mobilizing the scapula to move as it should.
Christy is also drinking out of a cup by herself again!! yay! And Christy is able to stand up all by herself just using the back of the chair to aid her!!! She is doing an incredible job! Christy is so super strong that she is able to stand in this position unaided by anyone for two minutes! We're so happy to get wonderful news of Christy's progression! She is stronger by the minute. The therapist at Craig are wonderful and will help Christy get back to independence! Thank you everyone for hanging in there, and checking up on Christy and loving and praying.
Keep reading the posts daily for Chrsity's messages, too! And today is the last day for orders on iheartchristy tee-shirts. Call Gail or email her pronto at gouveia444@hotmail.com.
thanks! gabby
Reading this blog isn't just our daily routine, its become a daily habit. So what a relief it was to know that it was just a joke that you were going to stop the blog on Christy. By the way April 1st is also Chris' (Boy) birthday. Christy's progress inspires us all and we keep praying for a full and quick recovery. GO CHRISTY!! and Hauoli la Hanau to all us April Fools Babies.
ReplyDeleteBoy & Vika Pilayo