Children love to play in the water. From toddlers to teenagers, bath-time to swim-time, water activities mean splashing and fun. The Therapy Gym, a one-stop shop for pediatric PT, OT, speech, and behavioral therapy, now offers aquatic therapy all year round. So your child who loves to be in the water can now benefit from aquatic therapy in an indoor facility as a complement to, or replacement of, land-based therapies. And your child does not even need to know how to swim!

Aquatic therapy is a specialized form of physical or occupational therapy. Water has been, and still remains, the best environment to achieve full function regardless of the injury. Water improves motion and flexibility. The warmth of the water and its massaging effects allow muscles to relax while helping to reduce pain. The natural buoyancy reduces gravitational pull and lessens compressive forces, making exercises much easier to perform than on land. Best of all, aquatic therapy can be used even if a patient does not know how to swim.

Because water is denser than air, it exerts more pressure on you as you enter it than you’re used to experiencing. This is because the water constantly adjusts its shape to accommodate your movements. It compresses your skin, muscles and joints via a concept called hydrostatic pressure. This concept forces the heart and lungs to work harder because the chest cavity is under direct pressure. In addition, it acts like a compression bandage for the entire body, helping to relieve chronic muscle aches when a person is submerged neck-deep. Water has multiple therapeutic benefits that stem from hydrostatic pressure.

The nervous system has an acute network of nerve endings in the skin and muscles that can respond to the slightest stimulus. Under a constant stimulus, such as pressure from water that the body is not used to, the nervous system will automatically dull the reticular system, which is the part of the brain responsible for dealing with tactile sensory neurons. This can also help to dull muscle pain, making it easier for you to stretch your muscles to their full range of motion to speed up treatment. One of the biggest obstacles to physical therapy is the pain involved in moving injured muscles to restore their function. People who dislike being touched often feel calmer in water because their sense of touch isn’t as acute.

One of the biggest aquatic therapy benefits is the constant resistance water offers when compared to air. Being forced to exert more energy to perform accustomed motions helps tone atrophied muscles faster by using more muscle fibers, and the presence of water helps reduce pain. It also helps to keep the child standing and minimizes a possible fear of falling due to water’s buoyancy.

The natural viscosity and resistance water provides forces you to move more slowly. This allows the brain to process the signals from your muscles more thoroughly because it has more time, an ideal benefit for rebuilding muscle memory. If someone has a neuromuscular condition or other impairment, muscle reeducation is made easier by the presence of water due to this property. Even outside of aquatic therapy, performing exercises in water makes you focus on taking the muscle properly through its full range of motion because you aren’t able to move as quickly and can think about how your body is moving.

Warm water helps to dilate blood vessels, improving circulation to the muscles. Muscle soreness is caused by lactic acid buildup, and the increased blood flow carries lactic acid away from the muscles and eases soreness. Sore muscles after a hard workout can demotivate you because of the pain involved. Therefore, one of the biggest aquatic therapy benefits is that of relaxing muscles. This also helps prevent accidental injury from overtraining, reducing the level of stress inflicted on healing muscles, cartilage or connective tissue.

Water flows in currents when you move through it. The gentle flow of water molecules around the body can acts as a natural form of massage, helping to further promote circulation and the relaxation of tired or sore muscles. By using equipment such as water paddles or aquatic gloves, the therapist can create gentle currents aimed at specific areas of the body, helping to work on problem areas.

There’s a reason most people like to go to the beach in summer: Swimming and other water sports are considered fun. One of the most important aquatic therapy benefits is it helps promote a positive, reinforcing environment for you to work in. A child might not realize he/she is engaging in work because of the lighthearted atmosphere that water promotes.

Warm water facilitates muscle relaxation and increases peripheral circulation.

Viscosity of water provides resistance for strength training.

Warm water stimulates body awareness, balance and trunk stability.

The reduction of gravitational forces in the pool allows the child to stand and engage in strengthening exercises with less exertion and effort.

Warm water and buoyancy results in decreased pain sensitivity.

The Therapy Gym added Aquatic Therapy to its repertoire about five months ago. The program has been a huge success and the gym currently has a physical therapist and an occupational therapist providing the therapy. The therapy is provided in a beautiful facility just eight minutes away from The Therapy Gym, and sessions are currently offered on Sunday mornings and Friday afternoons. Additional days will be added as needed.

Aquatic Therapy is a great compliment to the other services provided at The Therapy Gym. The Therapy Gym began as a pediatric physical therapy facility and quickly added occupational and speech therapy based on demand. It now provides physical, occupational, speech, behavioral, and aquatic therapy to its clients. In addition to the therapy offerings, it still provides wonderful classes for kids, which include Mommy and Me, yoga, sports training and social skills classes.

The Therapy Gym is a fun, loving, warm environment where your child will thrive. Therapists treat every child’s individual needs in order to help that child function at his/her optimal level in every environment.

The Therapy Gym bills insurance directly and will handle all aspects of insurance from checking benefits, to billing, to making sure claims are processed and paid. They will try to alleviate the financial burden of therapy and help each client any way they can.

Please call 201-357-0417 or email [email protected] to schedule an appointment or for more information.

By Elisheva Fuchs