Experience The Game-Changing Technology Known As The AlterG Anti-Gravity Treadmill.
Have you ever tried getting back to running only to be sidetracked by a nagging pain in your foot or knee? Or are you recently recovering from a hip, knee, or ankle surgery? We are happy to announce that we have brought the only Alter G Anti-Gravity treadmill on Miami Beach to ASR Physical Therapy! What exactly is the Alter G treadmill and how does it differ from other treadmills? My name is Dr. Anika Arevalo and I am a physical therapist and running coach on Miami Beach. Let me dive deeper into the benefits of the Alter G and how it can facilitate your rehab process whether you are dealing with acute or chronic injuries.
The Alter G is an anti-gravity treadmill that uses patented NASA Differential Air Pressure technology to gently and precisely reduce gravitational forces on our patients, allowing them to unload painful joints and reduce limping and compensatory patterns to natural gait mechanics. In addition it has revolutionized and dramatically sped up the recovery process from lower extremity surgeries such as ACL and Achilles reconstruction, Meniscus repair, joint replacements, and sports injuries. The treadmill gently unweights patients to as low as 20% of their body weight in a low impact environment to facilitate a safe return to walking or running. But how does it ”unload” the patient? Patients wear patented shorts that zip into the Alter G air bag, creating a closed seal, which then fills up with air to reduce the patient's load on the treadmill and produce a sensation of floating. As you walk or jog, you are able to have a live gait analysis via video, pressure feedback, and other metrics.
This technology is especially ideal for lower extremity pain from running or recent surgery. There is a vast running community especially here on Miami Beach. At ASR Physical Therapy we treat runners with injuries such as knee pain, patellar tendonitis, ankle sprains, or IT band syndrome on a daily basis. The main concern with running injuries is that runners are worried that their training will suffer due their injury. The Alter G has been an essential tool to allow our runners to train while rehabbing their injury and keeping up that aerobic capacity that they are afraid they will lose. Not only is the Alter G great for rehabbing a running injury, it is great for training in general to prolong your running career. Getting 1-2 runs a week on the treadmill at 80-85% of your body weight allows you to keep up your mileage but give those joints and muscles a much needed rest break.
The Alter G also allows our patients to start weight bearing exercises while protecting healing tissues especially after surgeries such as total hip and knee replacement, achilles repair or ankle surgery. With most of these surgeries or injuries there are weight bearing restrictions as the tendon or ligament heals. The Alter G allows you to start working on joint mobility, muscle strength and loading in a gradual process. It is also great for patients with balance deficits, fall risks, and gait dysfunction as it allows a patient to work on restoring leg strength while reducing risk of falls.
A recent study show that followingt ACL allograft repair, 8 weeks of reduced body weight training on the AlterG Anti-Gravity Treadmill enabled the athlete to progressively load the lower extremities and maintain non-compensatory running gait during her rehabilitation to achieve full weight bearing jogging at 12 weeks with no gait compensations or loss of cardio- vascular endurance. This is a huge achievement to be able to get that patient back to sport without lower extremity compensation. You can find other case studies like this at https://www.alterg.com/clinical-information/case-studies.
The Alter G Anti-Gravity treadmill has revolutionized the world of injury rehabilitation and we are proud to be the first practice to offer it to our patients here in Miami Beach. Don’t hesitate to schedule today for an evaluation and see how this game-changing technology can help you get back to doing what you love to do. You can schedule directly from our website, email at admin@asrphysicaltherapy.com, or call 305-602-3105.