Philosophy
Neurolife Physiotherapists assess a client's current movement and potential to move.

Analysis and treatment is based on The Bobath Concept.
The Bobath Concept involves intensive post graduate training that offers a deeper analysis of movement and handling skills to apply appropriate sensory input, which stimulate muscle activation. The Bobath Concept is supported by emerging neurophysiological evidence and is distinguished from other therapies by its emphasis on postural control, sensory-motor processing and handling skills. The Bobath concept aims to provide opportunities for strengthening and practice that does not just strengthen the use of compensatory muscles without changing the movement pattern. Recent research is now showing stretches for neurological problems to be ineffective at maintaining increased range. We need to understand why muscles are becoming tight in the first place. Often muscles are not short but are “on” (the brain is actively contracting the muscle) because this is the person’s learned way of attempting to hold themselves up against gravity. Lying down and stretching is not beneficial if the muscle just contracts again the next time the person sits up against gravity. More information on the Bobath Concept can be found at www.ibita.orgThe systems of the brain and spinal cord have a large capacity for “plasticity”.
There is many “parallel wiring” of the nerve pathways from the brain to the spinal cord. The postural stabilisation pathways and goal directed movement pathways summate in the spinal cord to produce a smooth goal directed movement. In any given treatment, the Neurolife Physiotherapist constantly works to manipulate their handling, the task, client alignment and client position with the aim of triggerring a familiar automatic movement pattern or b alance response.Treatment is “hands on” in order to manipulate the very close relationship between sensation and muscle activation.

Treatment is guided by the person’s individual characteristics.
Movement varies greatly between individuals depending on the person’s life time of experiences, sport, leisure activities, vocation, posture, mood, personality etc. The best way to stimulate appropriate muscle activity will depend on all of these individual factors and also the learning style of the person.Dedication to therapist training is essential.
Neurolife Physiotherapists are trained and experienced in movement analysis and facilitation (handling skills). All our staff are supported to attend Physiotherapy courses in relevant areas.A person's arm can improve movement and use after a stroke.
Some possible reasons why the arm does not recover as well as the leg during hospital rehabilitation can be summarised as follows:1) Arms do not get the amount of therapy that legs and walking does.
2) Hand function is the result of a very complex relationship between head alignment, eye stabilisation and motor control of the hand.
3) We can manage with the other arm in a lot of functions so the necessity to use it is not as strong a drive for brain plasticity.
However, given there are similar pathways and centers of control in the brain for the arm as there is for the leg, we can expect plasticity and recovery to occur. There is a large number of treatment options for the upper limb and a large number of intermediate steps and goals to achieve before reaching is achieved. Some of the methods of improving arm movement and use are by;1) Regaining postural control of the trunk and often hip, lower limb and foot! which then allows the arm to relax and not have to tense up and perform an inappropriate balancing fixation role. It also provides the background or stable base for the arm to move away from.
2) Regaining alignment of the upper limb muscles and joints.
3) Regaining the postural muscle activation of the upper limb in various positions, especially standing.
4) Hands on specific facilitation of muscle activation in the upper limb.
5) Hand sensory stimulation.
6) Integration of activity into functional goal orientated reaching tasks or bilateral tasks.