Today is the first day of my rehab for my lower extremities. I arrived very early for my scheduled session.
The session started with a quick chat with my therapist, then she gave me a sleep mask so she can start with using the infrared machine. The purpose of the mask to prevent my eyes to have contact with the infrared light. These lights are very concentrated and could damage the eyes. The purpose of this is to heat up the a specific targeted part of the body, which in this case is my foot, for the preparation for next phases of the treatment. This lasted for about 5 minutes.
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| TENS control box |
The second modality was using a TENS machine. TENS stand for Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. Its main purpose is to reduce the pain and relax the muscles. It is used by connecting a pair or two pairs of electrodes, a negative and positive. An electrode produces needle like electric pulses to the area where the electrodes are attached while the other absorbs the electricity produced by the former. Each of the areas where the electrodes are attached were covered with heat compress to increase the effect and the efficiency of the machine.
As my therapist mentioned, every person has a different level of pain tolerance, therefore the strength of the electricity produced by the control box would vary for each patient. She suggested that the level of pain that the electricity should be producing is at a tolerable state. This phase had a duration of approximately 20-30 minutes.
The last modality was a therapeutic ultrasould. This has three purposes, first is for speeding up the healing process through increase blood flow. Second is reduction of pain and swelling on the area applied. Lastly, a gentle massage to the ligaments. This took about 5 minutes per area.
The last few minutes of the session were just a few light exercises where it involves the affected areas. The next sessions would involve a much more complex process than this one.
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