What is range of motion and why is it important to maintain after a spinal cord injury?

Range of motion is a term that we use as therapists to indicate the flexibility of someone’s arms, legs or trunk. And so, we often discuss range of motion in that we would like the extremities—the legs and the arms—to be stretched and maintain their flexibility, which is really important for those mobility skills. The activities that person will be doing throughout that day in order to have that flexibility, they need to maintain their range of motion, as well as to be able to sit in the wheelchair in a way that is stable, and upright and prevents pressure ulcers.

With range of motion what we want to do is teach the family and the patient how to instruct somebody if they can’t do the range of motion independently on stretching their legs on a daily basis. It’s the same thing if you or I were going to get up in the morning and stretch, you feel better afterwards. But for someone with a spinal cord injury, it’s more important because we want to make sure that the muscles of their legs stay long, lean and flexible. Part of that is teaching the patient and the family, if the family is going to be able to help with it, the appropriate techniques in order to perform. You see in movies all the time, the very dramatic scene in the hospital where they’re going back and forth, and faster, faster and push harder. And truthfully we don’t teach that because it’s not appropriate. It’s great for a Hollywood movie, but it’s not appropriate for real life. If you do the very fast and very hard stretching it can actually make somebody’s’ spasticity worse. So we teach the appropriate sequencing, we want to keep that person’s legs long, lean and flexible, like I said, so that if they’re going to get return of movement, their legs will be ready for it. And if they’re not at this time going to get that return of movement, what we can do is prepare their body for when that time comes.