Imagine your fist is tightly closed and you can’t open it. You can’t release it to open a jar, let alone pick up a pencil. Now imagine living with this condition for months or even years. This is spasticity.
Spasticity is a tightening of muscles in the limbs caused by neurological conditions. It affects the central nervous system and is most often found in people who have suffered from stroke, cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis. The real tragedy is that this neurological disorder is often overlooked or misdiagnosed, resulting in complications that can worsen over time.
Spasticity may feel like stiffness or tightness of muscles and it’s often painful to stretch the affected muscles. The main problem, though, is the way it hinders a person’s daily function: either active function, meaning you can’t reach; grasp a utensil to feed yourself; dress/undress; or walk, or passive function, where there is an increased burden of care on the caregiver, such as difficulty managing hygiene or helping to dress/undress their loved one.
Physicians are starting to understand that rehabilitation can really help. In the past decade, we’ve seen triple the number of patients treated at West Park Healthcare Centre’s rehabilitation clinic. When spasticity is caught in the early stages, it can most often be managed through a combination of exercise and medications or injections.
