What are the joint activity training equipment?

Currently, joint mobility training equipment commonly used in clinical and home settings covers passive movement, active assistance, and resistance-strengthening full recovery stages. Common ones include CPM continuous passive motion equipment, pulley joint trainers, elastic bands, suspension training devices, and recumbent power bikes. The equipment suitable for different recovery stages is quite different.

When I was rotating in the rehabilitation department, the CPM machine I came across the most was used in the early postoperative period. Patients who have just undergone knee replacement and cruciate ligament reconstruction can lie in bed and use it two or three days after the operation. The machine slowly flexes and extends the joints along the preset angle without the patient's own efforts. It can pull the stuck soft tissues apart little by little. It is more efficient than the rehabilitation practitioner's manual joint breaking, and it is easier to control the strength. Many patients are gripping the railings in pain at first, and they can clearly feel the joints loosening after three or four days of use.

Once you can exert force on your own, the equipment you use becomes more grounded, such as the pulley trainer hanging on the door. Patients with rotator cuff injuries and frozen shoulder have difficulty raising their arms. They pull the handles at both ends and rely on the strength of the unaffected arm to carry the affected shoulder. Lifting up is considered an active assist type. There used to be a 52-year-old aunt who stretched her shoulders while dancing in the square after retirement. She stretched her shoulders for 20 minutes a day at home. In two weeks, she could only lift her arms to shoulder height, but recovered to being able to lift her arms to reach the quilt on the top of the closet.

If the range of motion of the joint has been fully restored and you want to strengthen the surrounding muscles and consolidate the range of motion, small equipment such as elastic bands and mini sandbags are enough. For patients with late-stage ankle sprains, sitting on elastic bands to perform inversion and eversion resistance movements is much more stimulating than practicing with bare hands, and is less likely to relapse.

Nowadays, there are many Internet celebrity artifacts sold online that claim to "improve joint mobility in one second," such as vibrating knee massagers and traction cervical spine trainers. The industry's views on such equipment are actually quite divided. Some rehabilitation practitioners believe that most of these products can only relax superficial muscles. It has no real effect on improving the range of motion of joints. If the intensity is too high, it may strain the fragile soft tissues in the acute stage. Others feel that as long as they choose compliant products and use them as a relaxation aid after formal training, it is not considered an IQ tax, so there is no need to completely deny it.

For patients with hemilateral limb weakness and joint stiffness after cerebral infarction, they will also use the large-scale suspension training system in the rehabilitation hall, which lifts the arm or leg on the affected side and removes part of the weight. The patient can try to move the joints without having to fight gravity. The burden is much less during the training, and it can also save the rehabilitation practitioner a lot of effort. When choosing this type of equipment, it is best to ask your rehabilitation practitioner first. I met a young man with knee synovitis before. He watched a short video and bought a squat rack to practice at home. He wanted to increase the range of motion of his knees. As a result, after three days of practice, he was so swollen that he could not even walk, which delayed his recovery for more than half a month.