What Is Functional Movement Therapy

Functional movement is very important for gait and mobility. It’s also very important to know where your body is in space, and where objects are. Our functional movement has two main parts: we have one part where we’re looking at which areas of the body aren’t firing appropriately. How are the muscles and the motor coordination? If it isn’t appropriate in an area, we focus on getting the coordination and motor function back, and getting people to be able to stand or walk again.

Why Vibration?

We utilize a large vibration plate during much of our functional movement therapy, for a multitude of different reasons. At the most basic level, vibration is a particularly complex stimulus for the brain to decode, and therefore helps to further drive neurological activation. Cerebellar integration is driven by vibration, and collicular remapping becomes more effective due to increased awareness of joints.

Vibration is also a powerful tool in restoring proprioception (sense of where your body is in space) and sensation in the feet. When a patient stands on the vibration plate during exercises such as gait therapy and tectal remapping, the bare feet pick up the vibration and send proprioceptive messages to the brain. This plays a large role in regaining a patient’s awareness of oneself in their environment, and help to speed up the process of regaining mobility.

The frequency of the vibration affects muscle spindles and receptors, respectively:

At lower frequencies:
Increases the weight of gravity by 1.5x, making movements more challenging and activating. Slower vibration increases stress on the spindles which increase strength.
At higher frequencies:
Increases the activity of the stretch receptors which increases flexibility. Also stimulates the lymphatic system which increases immune system activity.