How do ARPwave treatments work?
ARPwave Neuromuscular Therapy utilizes electrical stimulation, paired with exercises and designated movements, to activate your nervous system and trigger the body’s natural healing response. This process creates new movement patterns while actively building strength. Therapy can be administered by physical therapists, pain management specialists, chiropractors, and athletic trainers, or in many cases, it can be self-administered from the comfort of your home with virtual oversight.
“It’s just like riding a bike.”
When someone uses this phrase, they don’t necessarily mean that whatever you’re trying to do is equivalent to riding a bike. Rather, they mean to say, “Your body remembers, even if you don’t.” But how does that work exactly?
The Science Behind Neuroplasticity
The first reflexes and movement patterns we learn as children are based on what each area of the body was designed to do. When you learn a new skill or movement, your body creates a pathway in your brain with electrical impulses, essentially creating a railway for the pulses to follow the next time you complete that skill. Then, the more you practice, the more established that pathway becomes. This ability to form new pathways in the brain is due to a phenomenon known as Neuroplasticity.
Childhood Neuroplasticity and Lifelong Learning
During the first few years of life, the brain is particularly neuroplastic, allowing us to grow and learn the basic skills we need to function as human beings, like holding our heads up, walking, and speaking. As a child, neuroplasticity is at an all time high, this is why children learn as quickly as they do. The brain essentially goes from being a blank slate at birth, to a fully comprehensive map of everything they’ve learned in a matter of years.
Beyond Childhood: The Continued Plasticity of Adults
Originally, scientists believed that the brain stopped developing after the first few years of life. However, while studying monkeys, they found that after examining the brains over a period of time, they were able to find different neuronal connections with each examination (1). This actually makes a lot of sense due to the fact alone that adults are capable of learning new skills. It’s certainly not as easy as it was in infancy, however it is possible. As the brain ages, neuroplasticity slows down but never stops completely.
A fantastic example of plasticity in adult brains is how the brain changes after injury (2). After suffering from a stroke or other type of traumatic brain injury, a person may temporarily lose function in a particular area of the body. However, in the time after the incident, they may regain function. This is not necessarily due to the rapid healing of that particular pathway, but rather the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by creating new connections.
Overcoming Challenges: The Role of ARPwave Neurotherapy
It is not abundantly clear exactly how plasticity shapes brain morphology and physiology, but what is clear is that it does (3).
As amazing as it is, this ability to reroute neurological pathways can also be problematic, causing what is known as maladaptive plasticity (4). This can be seen in conditions such as phantom limb pain but also in common, everyday mechanical occurrences known as compensation patterns.
When you get hurt, this triggers a protective response in the body signaling that area needs to rest, however, your body also needs to continue functioning. So, what happens is your brain reorganizes itself in a way that allows for continued function while directing force away from the injured area (i.e. a limp when you hurt your ankle). Unfortunately, the longer the body “runs” a compensation pattern, the more deeply ingrained the compensation pathway becomes. This can sometimes result in continued usage of the compensation pattern through muscle memory alone even long after the original injury has healed. This is problematic for several reasons, but the biggest one is that this alternate way of moving becomes the new normal despite that area not being designed to bear the brunt of that force.
By altering our baseline movement patterns, we inadvertently redirect the force into an area not equipped to handle it. In the long term, this can cause pain, additional injury, and further compensation patterns.
ARPwave NeuroTherapy: Harnessing Neuroplasticity for Healing
Luckily, we can use the same neuroplasticity that caused this original compensation pattern to our advantage. ARPwave NeuroTherapy has had incredible success in eliminating compensation patterns utilizing a current similar to what the brain naturally sends, to trigger another reorganization without additional injury. Through the use of proper movement and external electrical impulses, the ARPwave protocols help clients revert back to the original movement patterns they learned as children.
Take Control of Your Neuroplasticity
If you or someone you know suffers from chronic pain or has recently experienced an injury, please reach out to book a call with an ARPwave physical therapist today. Neuroplasticity is already something our brain experiences, so you might as well use it to your advantage.
