Nerve Injury and Rehabilitation

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Nerve Injury and Rehabilitation

Nerve Injury and Rehabilitation

Peripheral nerves send messages from your brain and spinal cord to the rest of your body, helping you do things such as sensing that your feet are cold and moving your muscles so that you can walk. Made of fibers called axons that are insulated by surrounding tissues, peripheral nerves are fragile and easily damaged. A nerve injury can affect your brain’s ability to communicate with your muscles and organs.

Nerves are fragile and can be damaged by continued compression, being over-stretched, cutting, and other causes. Nerve injuries can block messages getting to the brain, so muscles don’t function correctly; they can create a loss of feeling in the area served by the nerve; they can create a burning or freezing type of pain; and other problems.

Causes

  • Autoimmune diseases
  • Cancer
  • Rheumatoid Arthritis
  • Compression/trauma
  • Diabetes
  • Drug side effects and toxic substances
  • Motor neuron diseases
  • Nutritional deficiencies
  • Infectious disease
  • Sjogren's syndrome
  • Guillain-Barre Syndrome
  • Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
  • Tarsal Tunnel Syndrome
  • Injury from an accident, a fall or sports can stretch, compress, crush or cut nerves
  • Narrowing of the arteries
  • Hormonal imbalances
  • Tumors

Symptoms

  • With a peripheral nerve injury, you may experience symptoms that range from mild to seriously limiting your daily activities. Your symptoms often depend on which nerve fibers are affected:
  • Motor nerves. These nerves regulate all the muscles under your conscious control, such as walking, talking, and holding objects. Damage to these nerves is typically associated with muscle weakness, painful cramps and uncontrollable muscle twitching.
  • Sensory nerves. Because these nerves relay information about touch, temperature and pain, you may experience a variety of symptoms. These include numbness or tingling in your hands or feet. You may have trouble sensing pain or changes in temperature, walking, keeping your balance with your eyes closed or fastening buttons.
  • Autonomic nerves. This group of nerves regulates activities that are not controlled consciously, such as breathing, heart and thyroid function, and digesting food. Symptoms may include excessive sweating, changes in blood pressure, the inability to tolerate heat and gastrointestinal symptoms.

Assessment

After a diagnosis of a peripheral nerve injury, a full subjective and objective examination is required to get a clear picture of the way the lesion is affecting the client. The examination should focus on

  • Pain assessment
  • Sensation deficit and skin condition
  • Muscle strength/loss
  • Functional deficits
  • Balance deficits
  • Joint stiffness
  • Emotional stress

Here at Nova Health Physiotherapy Clinic, we will evaluate the causes of your pain and dysfunction, develop an individually tailored treatment plan and provide one-on-one treatment to get you to pain free life.

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