What can one do to promote flexibility and mobility?

If you’ve been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, or have poor flexibility, you may have been instructed to take certain medications.  What else can one do to promote flexibility and mobility?

 It is helpful to move each joint as fully as you can, at least daily, and more frequently if the joints are stiff (as happens with the rigidity of patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease).  A joint that is not moved on a consistent basis can become stiff.

Without forcing the joint, while sitting down, slowly move each joint yourself, systematically following a scheme like: shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers and then hips, knees, ankles, toes. If you have pain, do not continue.  Try to relax while doing this, breathing regularly.  It is best to do these exercises when the body and limbs are warm.  Speed is not an issue– move slowly and deliberately.

Move each joint actively (without pushing or pulling it) in the direction it naturally goes: bending, straightening, turning.

For the back: slowly bend forward and then back, slightly arching the back.  Turn left and then right at the waist, then bend sideways to the left and the right.

For the neck: slowly look up and then down, turn to the left and the right, and then tilt each ear toward the shoulder on that side.

If you have received Physical Therapy or Occupational Therapy, you will know that exercises like these are a basic part of therapy.  They are called active range of motion exercises, because the individual actively moves his/her own limbs.  They are different from passive range of motion exercises in which someone else moves the limbs for the individual.

By doing range of motion exercises you are fighting the loss of joint flexibility.  This loss can contribute to weakness and deconditioning which will be discussed in a subsequent newsletter.

If in spite of the above measures you are losing joint flexibility, be sure to let your physician know so that treatment by a physical or occupational therapist can be considered.

The preceding article was taken from our Medical Department’s  newsletter, “The Aging Brain.”