Cane Exercise for Stroke Rehab

Dean Reinke
Deans' Stroke Musing

Saturday, October 2, 2010

This is not medical advice, just something I do.

Found a couple of exercises to use with my cane.

For flexibility in the shoulder and ROM (range of motion) I started by using the pulley over the door, but that was only available in one place and it was extremely hard to get my hand open enough to grab the handle. So I tried something different, putting the grip handle of my cane in my affected hand, I grabbed the lower part of the cane with the unaffected hand and used that to push my affected arm up. First straight in front of me, then to the side and eventually to the rear. I would try to get my affected hand to the level of my head.  After a while I could get it well above my head. Next step was to move the arm around in a semicircle around my body as it was up in the air.

I first had to use the unaffected arm to push the affected arm around but was able to get the affected arm moving by itself. A recent addition is to put the grip of the cane in my affected hand and push the left arm straight out to the side and then place the tip of the cane on my hip. I then try to move my arm behind my back, this stretches my spastic pecs out and forces my biceps to quiet down. I know this has helped both my arm swing and relaxing my biceps. This de-weighting of the arm has led to other similar advances.

For working on my triceps I used my cane also. First sit down on a chair and place your cane in front of you, affected hand on the grip, tip on the ground, starting out you can use your unaffected hand to fully extend your affected arm. As you get better at this you will be able to use your affected arm only to extend your arm and then pull it back. I started out by doing 50 reps of these nightly, ended up doing them also when waiting at a bus stop bench, or when sitting in a waiting room. For working on your shoulder muscles when your arm is extended straight in front of you,move your arm to the right and left, seeing how far down you can go. This I use to mimic moving the steering wheel on a car.

By using the cane in these manners I am carrying around my exercise equipment all day long.

Remember you didn't hear this from me, ask your therapist first.