In September, Carolyn Colby was hit by a car in Marblehead and suffered serious injuries to her left leg – a fractured fibula and a plateau fracture of her tibia. She was hospitalized for a week, spent another two weeks in rehab and had to take time off from her job as elementary-school music teacher in Middleton. Doctors told Colby not to put any weight on her broken leg for three months but cleared her to start aquatic therapy in a pool, before her bones were even healed.

Fawn Anderson and Susan Finigan, physical therapists with Mass.-based North Shore Physical Therapy, soon met with Colby weekly for aquatic therapy sessions at the Salem YMCA, where she stretched and exercised in the warmth and buoyancy of the Y's pool. Colby walked and ran in the water, and employed bicycle and cross-country skiing motions as part of her workout.

“(Aquatic therapy) really paved the way for when I was actually ready to bear weight,” says Colby of Marblehead. “I could do all those motions and use all those muscles even though I couldn't do them on land.”

Starting therapy early, in water, allows patients to maintain cardiovascular fitness and muscle strength, says Anderson of NSPT, with offices in Marblehead and Swampscott.

“By the time we see people, their muscles have become too weak and need to heal first, so they oftentimes don't see us until they can do conventional land therapy,” says Anderson. “With aquatic therapy, we see them earlier.”

According to Anderson, aquatic therapy is designed to aid in the rehabilitation of various conditions and medical diagnoses – such as arthritis, low back pain, joint replacements, and knee, shoulder and ankle surgeries. Neurological conditions, like Parkinson's, stroke, and balance/gait disturbances can improve from aquatic therapy as well, she says. And those who suffer from fibromyalgia can gain muscle strength and endurance, receive pain relief and experience relaxation of muscle spasms. Additionally, elite athletes – such as triathletes – rehab or cross-train in pools to further their fitness regimen.

Benefits include increases in muscular relaxation, strength, peripheral circulation, respiratory muscle strength and cardiac function, and a decreases in muscle spasms, according to Anderson. Reduction in gravitational forces assist with walking, and the therapy improves body awareness, balance and trunk stability.

The science behind aquatic therapy involves the pool's warm temperature and hydrostatic pressure, which heats and relaxes muscles, respectively; buoyancy, which lessens joint compression; and kinetic resistance, which promotes muscle activity and provides a force to move against.

Today, the Aquatic Therapy and Rehab Institute offers continuing education courses to advance the knowledge and skills of aquatic therapists. Both Anderson and Finigan are certified by ATRI.

The medical community has embraced the concept, too: Doctors commonly prescribe their patients sessions of water-based therapy, which is covered by most insurers.

Aquatic therapy is good exercise for those with long-standing back conditions or people who have experienced recent trauma, according to Sara J. Lee, MD, a physiatrist who specializes in spinal disorders, neck and back pain. Lee says she's prescribed the therapy since 1998, and estimated that 10 percent to 15 percent of her patients end up in the pool.

“It's really a great treatment option for certain patients,” says Lee, who is employed by North Shore Physicians Group in Peabody. Lee added that total-knee replacement patients are good candidates for pool therapy, as are people with pinched nerves, and those who want to avoid surgery or can't take the pain of traditional therapy.

According to 2008 study in the journal Physical Therapy, “water-based therapy was superior to land-based exercise for relieving pain before and after walking” for osteoarthritis patients.

When Peter J. van Twuyver opened Orthopaedic Physical Therapy Specialists in Peabody with his wife, Kim, in 2007, they did not have an aquatics program. Potential clients called inquiring about aquatic therapy and Kim van Twuyver had to turn them away. That changed in June, when OPTS started Monday-morning sessions in the pool of the Peabody-Lynnfield YMCA.

Within days of posting the sessions on the practice's Website, Peter J. van Twuyver says the office received several calls.

“If you don't have an aquatics program, you're at a disadvantage,” he says.

Source: Larry Claflin Jr./The Salem News