GYMNASTICS AID MEDICINE

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1929, Page 5

GYMNASTICS AID MEDICINE

DEVELOPMENTS IN AUSTRALIA.

Sydney, June 20.

In the medical gymnasiums at some of the metropolitan hospitals in Australia cripples who have lost the use of lege, arms or hands through various forms of paralysis, are having their muscles re-educated to their natural functions. New hope comes to them when they find that, with practice, the power to walk is returning, or an arm or hand will do things which they never believed it would be capable of doing again. Gymnasiums of this kind are now attached to most modern hospitals, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne. The patients at the Melbourne Hospital are under the care of Miss M. V. Bull, a youn? and energetic medical gymnast who trained there and has had charge of the gymnasium since it was established about eighteen months ago. Miss Bull attends every afternoon and treats cases which average thirteen a day. Nearly all are out-patients, and many of them are sufferers from spinal curvature. There are facilities in the gymnasium for treating nerves, rheumatoid, and locomotor ataxia cases. Joints and limbs which have seemingly been left stiff and useless by old fractures are restored to free and easy' action. Misa Bull, who is intensely interested in her work, is very persevering, for as a rule cures are effected very slowly. She laughted at the suggestion that the halt and the lame came on crutches and walked away unaided after the first course of re-education. The progress of some patients has been astonishing, but ahe declares that no miracles are performed. The gymnasium is equipped with several contrivances for exercise. *On one side of the room the floor is painted with white footmarks, on which leg patients have to walk instead of shuffling along. They follow the marks up and down until they get the correct movement. Each lesson is harder than the previous one, the squares in which the feet are placed becoming smaller as the test proceeds. Simple turns which a normal person does without thinking are a great effort for some of the afflicted people. There are special marks for teaching the turn. One is a white zig-zag course about nine inches wide. With some cripples there is no co-ordin-ation of movement, and their legs swing out wide as goon as they start to walk, but on the zig-zag course they try, and try again, until they can keep within th - lines.

There is a walking board on which patients move along with the aid of a trolly to rest their hands on. The board becomes narrower and more difficult as the trolly is pushed forward. Another appliance is an American machine known as a pelvis fixer. The patient is strapped in and can move only from the hips. From this position bending exercises are given. The gymnasium also contains a stationary bicycle and a rowing machine for general exercises. On these stiff knees and elbows are loosened. These machines were originally on a troopship, and were presented to the hospital by the Red Cross Society. Medical gymnastics come under the science of physiotherapy, which includes massage and treatment by eelctricity.