Biofeedback Motor Control Training with Real Time Force Plate Analysis

We’ve made it our mission to help our patients find the pathway to recovery as quickly as possible, providing them with a better quality of life and improved functioning. Biofeedback motor control training offers a groundbreaking approach that has had promising results for our patients with lower extremity disorders. If you are the victim of a host of injuries involving the knees or hips due to an active lifestyle, biofeedback motor control could be the answer you are looking for as you journey the road to rehabilitation.

Biofeedback motor control training involves using force plate technology. Ground reaction force, both the direction and magnitude, is carefully measured as your joints are moved in a variety of ways. Your muscle activity as related to the area of injury is carefully evaluated. Our staff of caring professionals is able to analyze your muscle activation and monitor them closely. The main goal is to make adjustments in your muscle activity in order to improve functioning and eliminate any errors in movement.
We have been successfully using this technology to rehabilitate professional athletes with conditions such as; knee instability, ACL tears, labrum tears, sever ankle sprains and patella-femoral pain syndrome.

In order to take the best course of action in a treatment plan for your condition, it’s important to have a keen understanding of the external and internal forces that are at work during movement. Not only is it important for the staff to understand these forces, it allows you to put your own damage control in place, avoiding further injury or future injuries during movement. Through careful study of biofeedback motor control, we will be able to help you to correct your movement patterns. As a result, you can avoid muscle strain, improve shock absorption, and avoid overloading your joints. When your performance and techniques in movement are perfected, you can reduce pain and avoid injury, assisting you in the healing process.

Conventional treatment of knee and hip injuries usually involves physical therapy. While it cannot be denied that physical therapy is beneficial in structural functioning and muscle strength through the repetition of corrective exercises, it does not transfer to daily living. Biofeedback motor control training actually teaches you proper patterns of movement that you will apply on a day to day basis, ensuring you are moving in optimal ways once you walk out of your therapy session. In order to have the best results, you must apply effective techniques every session. The more you engage your muscles in the proper way and adjust patterns in order to avoid injury, you will find yourself experiencing a much more rapid recovery. It’s much easier to step forward when you’ve been given the most effective tools.

Biofeedback motor control training utilizing real-time force plate analysis is the newest advance in treatment and rehabilitation of lower extremity disorders. This specific type of training is successfully used for treatment and post surgical rehabilitation of the knee and hip injuries as well as addressing gait dysfunctions. It is extremely effective in treatment of injuries sustained in prolonged high-exertion physical activities: team sports, figure skating, tennis, running and ballet dancing. Typical traumas suffered during these activities include patella-femoral knee injuries, ACL tears, knee instability ,hip labrum tears and sever ankle sprains.

Force plate is the only technology that can non-invasively measure with precision quantity and quality of GRF (ground reaction force) in both magnitude and direction. By relating the reaction forces to the joint positions at varying phases of the movement cycle, muscle activity can be properly evaluated. Combined with surface electromyography, specific muscle activation patterns can be confirmed and monitored.
As the patient, while positioned on the force plate, walks, runs, jumps or performs other exercises, ground reaction forces are displayed as vectors on the monitor screen providing the feedback that allows correcting joint angles during the observed movement so that the proper alignment and force distribution can be achieved.

The damage control could be established only if a patient learns how to manage internal and external forces occurring during the movement. According to the Newton’s 3d law of dynamics, the forces, which we exert onto the ground, are reflected back to our muscles and joints with equal intensity. Therefore by careful study of the movement and resulting GRF distribution, the excessive forces can be minimized and shock absorption can be improved ultimately reducing impact on muscles and joints.

For example, during a drop jump from an 8” box onto the force plate the monitor screen will display the joint angles at the moment of the landing, while the accompanying graph will display the ground reaction forces produced by the jump. Excessive ground reaction forces represent excessive wear to our joints while deviations in vector alignment represent poor muscle control. The ability to see this data in real-time allows the patient to correct movement patterns (technique or performance) therefore establishing proper neuromuscular control, decreasing excessive loading of the joints, improving shock absorption and avoiding muscle overuse. These measures are instrumental in reducing pain and halting the progress of the pathological process.

Muscle strength and structural efficiency gained with physical therapy and conventional corrective exercise programs, very rarely can be easily transferred to the spontaneous every-day motor activity. The professionalism of the therapist and patient’s motivation and discipline are the most decisive factors in the successful conservative care outcome. And even with sufficient patient’s motivation and a highly proficient therapist, the motor control transference can be a slow process and sometimes turns out to be a nearly impossible task. Not least important is a motivational factor. This type of training for knee and hip injuries, ACL and hip labrum tears as well as knee instability is a standard protocol for professional athletes.

The biofeedback real-time motor control training utilizing the force plate is a modern solution to nagging drawbacks in conventional physical therapy and rehabilitation. This new technique corrects movement patterns in their essence making the transference a natural therapeutic outcome. The biofeedback real-time motor control therapy provides an objective measure of the patient’s progress helping making necessary adjustments on the timely basis. This makes the therapy a fluid interactive process, allowing faster results and greatly improving the rate and sustainability of the patients’ recovery.

At New York Dynamic Neuromuscular Rehabilitation, we are dedicated to assisting you in every way possible to take the right path to rehabilitation. With biofeedback motor control, we can offer you specific suggestions to help you make targeted adjustments in motion that will benefit you in countless ways. You’ll experience an improved rate of recovery and be able to maintain positive results over time thanks to our innovative approach. If you suffer from, severe ankle sprain, hip labrum tear, ACL tear, knee instability or patella-femoral pain syndrome you would greatly benefit from this innovative approach which professional athletes have been utilizing for several years.

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In this instance, an athlete was originally diagnosed with minor quadriceps muscle strain and was treated for four weeks, with unsatisfactory results. When he came to our clinic, the muscle was not healing, and the patients’ muscle tissue had already begun to atrophy.

Upon examination using MSUS, we discovered that he had a full muscle thickness tear that had been overlooked by his previous provider. To mitigate damage and promote healing, surgery should have been performed immediately after the injury occurred. Because of misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment, the patient now has permanent damage that cannot be corrected.

The most important advantage of Ultrasound over MRI imaging is its ability to zero in on the symptomatic region and obtain imaging, with active participation and feedback from the patient. Using dynamic MSUS, we can see what happens when patients contract their muscles, something that cannot be done with MRI. From a diagnostic perspective, this interaction is invaluable.

Dynamic ultrasonography examination demonstrating
the full thickness tear and already occurring muscle atrophy
due to misdiagnosis and not referring the patient
to proper diagnostic workup

Demonstration of how very small muscle defect is made and revealed
to be a complete tear with muscle contraction
under diagnostic sonography (not possible with MRI)

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Complete tear of rectus femoris
with large hematoma (blood)

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Separation of muscle ends due to tear elicited
on dynamic sonography examination

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