The Effect of ‘Short-Cane’ on the Exercise in Parallel Bars

―For Serious Cases―

Abstract

We have a doubt of the exercise in parallel bars on the functional training. We concern about the fact that the patients try to perform the movements to stand up or to keep the balance of standing posture by pulling the bars easily when they use the parallel bars in training.
The motion of pulling the bars does not only cause the unnecessary associated movements or prevent the appearance of regular postural reaction, but also prevent the patients from learning to move the center of gravity in order to perform the physical movement efficiently. So we consider that the competence of patients cannot be shown maximumly until the movements of pulling bars on training are controlled perfectly.
But, however therapists pay attention to, patients pull the bars momentarily or imperceptibly. This has a enormously bad influence on gait training and transfer, following exercise in parallel bars.
So, we have devised ‘Short-Cane’ (Essentially this uses shortly cut single cane and parallel support stands) to control the movements of pulling perfectly. By using Short-Cane, we could set up the situation at which the patients are unable to pull the bars at all. Conducting trainings at such situation, we have got good results.
We have put the Short-Cane approach into practice for five serious cases. This time, we will report those cases.