Specialty Techniques for Water-Based Intervention

nterest in aquatic therapy has been booming for several years, but despite all the attention, little time has been spent focusing on specific techniques and their application. It’s important for rehab professionals to be aware that not all things done in water are equally definable by the phrase “aquatic therapy. ” What that phrase does tell you is that the goal was rehabilitation and that the patient got wet. It tells you as much as if I documented a PT lowing his physician’s recommen-dation of bed rest, he began to experiment with small movements while lying in bed. He felt these movements mimicked the natural developmental movements seen in children. Over time, he developed a series of movement patterns that required visit by describing the session as “dry-land intervention.”the body to move in strange combinations, patterns that would not be On land. we offer our patients the sum total of our knowledge normal for an adult. It was his contention that he could recondition as health care professionals. This knowledge mani-fests itself as specific interventions or as tech-niques. We don’t do “Terra Firma Physical Therapy”; we do McKenzie extension work, mus-cle energy techniques, mechanical traction, or spinal stabilization. In the water, this is no different. Today’s pro-fessionals have a growing number of aquatic options from which to chose. These specialty tech-niques expand the therapist’s proverbial bag of tricks and have application in acute, sub-acute, rehab, outpatient and extended care facilities. his body’s habitual, painful movement patterns by “starting over " as a newborn infant. This series of movements, which later became known as the Feldenkrais Method, allowed him to return to life rs later, Feldenkrais practitione