Traction chair therapy at the Padda Institute in St. Louis uses a reclining chair that slowly stretches and releases your spine while you sit back, for about fifteen minutes. Stretch after stretch, it unloads the spine and coaxes guarded muscles to relax.
This is one station in our physician-directed physiotherapy program. It runs only on your physician’s written order, at the strength your physician sets.
It is a reclining chair with a built-in program. You lean back and relax while it applies a gentle, repeating stretch along your spine.
Back and neck pain make the muscles along the spine brace and stay tight. A slow stretch, repeated many times, unloads the spine for a moment and gives those muscles a reason to let go.
A slow pull and release along your back. The chair begins at its lowest setting and climbs one step at a time, never past the level your physician ordered. Your technician checks in at two minutes and again halfway through.
Each visit opens with spoken safety questions. If something has changed since last time, such as a new medicine, a new symptom or a procedure this week, the physician decides before anything starts. Say stop at any moment and it stops.
About fifteen minutes.
Show us you have it: Tell us the words you will use if the stretch starts to hurt. If any part is unclear, ask, and we will walk through it again at your next visit.
Related reading: lumbar spinal stenosis, degenerative disc disease.
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