Advernture Rehab

Can I go swimming?
Swimming is excellent non impact cardio vascular training and you should get in a pool as often as you can. You do not need to wait for a water activity prosthesis – go in your normal limb to the pool side, take a towel, remove your limb with help if needs be, place it somewhere safe (or ask a life guard to do so for you) and go for a swim. When you finish, use that all important towel to dry your leg or arm, re fit the limb and walk carefully to the changing area.

Can I swim in the sea?
Yes no problem – but unless you choose to swim without a limb on in the sea which is more awkward – as safe places to leave your limb are more difficult to find and sand has habit of getting everywhere! – You need to speak to your prosthetic team about a limb that can cope with swimming in a sea water environment. This includes sailing, kayaking and surfing of course. Swimming the in the sea with a wetsuit on is great fun, good exercise and the legs and arms of the wet suit help provide additional suspension to your limbs. Get out there and book the family a body boarding lesson!… enjoy it.

How will I manage in a public shower?
Showers can be challenging places and require practice, agiity and balance. If in doubt ask where the disabled facility is – most places have one and use it. Anyhow – youll have more space and the kids can change more easily!

Will I be able to ski?
Snow sports are almost all accessible to prosthetic limb users – get in touch if you want advice on this area, but if you skied or snow boarded before you will be able to adapt your style to your circumstances, be prepared for a challenging period of retraining and if your planning a holiday give yourself 6 months to build up the relevant muscle groups and balance! You may find Snowboarding a less daunting prospect as both of your feet are attached to the same board and trying to control individual skis can be hard and risks injuring your knees, again speak to your prosthetics team about building limbs with knee braces and building limbs specifically for the demands of snow sports.

Will I be able to cycle? Will it be comfortable?
Cycling is another superb exercise that can be conducted early in your rehabilitation. You need to achieve reasonable flexion behind your knee and adaption’s may be necessary to your socket to make this comfortable – but discuss your aspirations with your Prosthetist. Controlling your peddles as a leg amputee can be frustrating and often ‘Clip in peddles’ are the solution. This is not as daunting as it appears and the connections can be adjusted to be very easy to un clip, in many examples’SPD’ style peddles and shoes are safer than traditional toe clips that often get snagged and are difficult to re fix your foot into. For arm and hand amputees handle bar and brake and gear shift adaption’s are reasonably straight forward to manufacture – speak to your rehab team and they will be able to advise you – or get touch with us for contacts and engineering advice! In terms of comfort it should be – begin by training on a gym bike, then perhaps progress to a ‘turbo trainer’ for your existing bike, get comfortable and adjust heights of saddles or handle bars etc, then safely and being realistic venture outside – we can guide you – and from there develop your skill and your will quickly return to your former ability and give yourself another avenue for challenging CV exercise and exhilaration.