How can hippotherapy facilitate change in a patient with low muscle tone?
Low muscle tone, also called hypotonus, refers to “decreased postural or muscle tone resulting in difficulty or inability to move, to sustain a posture against gravity, or to support functional movement”. The muscle quality is associated with limpness or a feeling of heaviness when the limb is moved and the head lags when lifted against gravity. There is a lack of joint stability, particularly through the midline, which limits dynamic postural stability and graded movement. Decreased sensory awareness contributes to a high threshold for pain. Change can be facilitated in the hypotonic patient using the movement of the horse and physical therapy principles: First, head stability and proper alignment of the joints must be maintained at all times; these patients are at risk for injury due to a lack of ligament, muscle and tissue resistance toward the ends of range of motion. Weight bearing or joint compression can be used to increase joint co-contraction and improve proximal stability; re
Related Questions
- Spasmolytics are group of drugs that decrease the muscle tone in the neurological diseases but the active contraction not affected. So, what the difference between muscle tone and the contraction?
- Have the patients coronary vessels, heart valves or myocardial muscle changed abnormally?
- Does it take weights to tone and build muscle?
