Exercises for Muscular Dystrophy

3

Filed Under (Exercise Rehabilitation) by Rick Kaselj on 20-08-2009

Question from a long time Exercises for Injuries blog and Fitness & Rehab newsletter reader:

I have a question for you regarding muscular dystrophy and I was wondering if you could help.

I’m currently treating a 7 year old boy who was recently diagnosed with muscular dystrophy (Duchenne type).

I have been working on his hip flexor/extensor strength along with the imbalance of lower leg muscles which are preventing him from running and climbing stairs.

I was wondering if you or anyone you know works with young kids that have similar issues as I’m not used working with such a young age group.

I have done quite a bit of research on muscular dystrophy and majority of it seems to be for very advanced stages (surgical cases, leg braces) at which he is not at and his physician is against.

If you could guide me to some better research resources I would greatly appreciate your help.

Calgary, AB

Rick Kaselj’s Response:

I have not done much work with muscular dystrophy clients. I asked a few collegues and these were the great resources they sent me. I thought these resources would be of benefit to other fitness professionals out there that have clients with muscular dystrophy:

Exercises for Muscular Drystorphy:

1) Disability/Condition: Muscular Dystrophy – click here to view the article

- This is a great article on benefits of exercise, considerations before exercising, guidelines for cardiovascular / strength / flexibility.

2) Looking for Guidelines on Training Clients with FSH Muscular Dystrophy – click here to view the forum post

- Great forum post with some great research reference on exercise and muscular dystrophy.

3) Neuromuscular Diorders in Childhood – click here for the text book section

- Very good chapter on DMD.

4) Exercise Your Options – click here to read the article

- Great article for your clients with MD. The article is full of lots of personal stories on exercise and MD.

I hope the resources above may help some of you.

If you have any experience working with client’s with muscular dystrophy it would be great if you could share some resources plus comment on exercise and MD in your clients.

Looking forward to reading your comments.

- Rick Kaselj, MS

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Comments posted (3)

Urszula says... on 20-08-2009

Thank you for the posted articles, I found them very informative and educating. I have been doing quite a bit of balance and ambulation with my client, mainly teaching him how to walk up and down the stairs (with the help of the railing) as well as using a variety of unstable surfaces to help develop his proprioception and the exercises have been helping him.

Hopefully one day we will be able to do more for those affected by this problem

Urszula

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