By Graham Jones, MSOT, OTR/L
If you have received a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, you may be wondering what happens next. How do you continue to live your life as independently as possible? How will you keep yourself functioning at your best for as long as possible? What should you do if you feel like you are having more trouble completing daily tasks? These are all good questions and a sign that you might benefit from therapy to help improve your function. Three important members of the allied health professional team include Physical therapy, Occupational therapy and Speech therapy. All three disciplines have great potential to help you maintain and/or improve your function.
Your physical therapist (PT) plays an important role in helping you improve your function in your fight against MS. They focus on improving your everyday function with exercise prescription, hands-on treatment and education. Your PT will evaluate your strength, flexibility, endurance, and balance to determine your current functional level and will set goals to improve. They will determine if you need an assistive device such as a cane or walker to help with your balance when walking. They can also use modalities such as electrical stimulation to help re-train your muscles to work more efficiently and provide you with strengthening exercises to improve your performance with walking and balance. Physical therapy also plays a role in helping you with proper breath control, reducing muscle tightness and addressing any vestibular or dizziness problems. They can also recommend leg braces for extra support to maximize your independence and reduce your risk of falling. Your PTs goal is to help you stay strong and conserve energy for the most important things in your life!
Your occupational therapist (OT) also provides significant assistance by helping you find strategies to make your life easier. OT focuses on improving your function with daily tasks such as work, leisure, or basic necessities (dressing, toileting or feeding etc.) to help keep you as independent as possible. Your OT will perform an evaluation to determine your baseline function with daily tasks, including any limitations keeping you from being independent due to deficits with strength, coordination or sensation. Your OT can provide you with strategies or equipment to help make you more efficient with daily tasks. They teach you energy conservation techniques to make sure you budget your energy properly and don’t tire out too quickly throughout the day. Your OT will help improve your coordination and sensation with exercise, activity training and modality usage such as heat, ice, or electrical stimulation. They provide education on home set up and adaptive equipment to keep you as safe as possible at home. Finally, your OT can evaluate you for a mobility device such as a wheelchair, powerchair or scooter if you are having increased difficulty with walking. With OT, you can be as independent as possible with the things you need to and want to do.
Your speech language therapist/professional (SLP) helps to round out your therapy services by assisting with your voice and swallowing function. Your SLPs goal is to improve your performance with language, communication and swallowing. Your SLP will evaluate what difficulties you may have with your voice or your ability to communicate as well as what types of food you can safely eat. They can help improve any speech impediments you may have, such as stuttering, and provide exercises and strategies to improve ability with swallowing to reduce risk of aspiration. Your SLP also helps you improve any issues with your thinking skills such as memory, attention and word finding difficulties to keep you functional with your desired daily activities. Speech therapy gives you the tools to help make sure you are able to communicate with your friends and family efficiently and effectively and help you eat what you want safely.
The members of your therapy team work together to identify your difficulties and create a plan to help get you back to your highest potential. Through the specialty treatment that each discipline provides, you can learn strategies, exercises, and activities to make sure you can live your life to the fullest!
At Virginian Rehabilitation and Wellness, we are unique in that we offer all three therapy services in each of our clinics. If you have recently received a MS diagnosis our team is here to help with whatever challenges you face.