EXERCISE 1: FRONTAL NECK STRENGTH CHALLENGE: Here is one of the many exercise you can do with a MotionGuidance "Patient Pack", from the comfort of your home. A good place to perform this is on your bed, all you need is a spot on the ceiling to hang the clock target. This exercise gives you an objective measurement of your frontal neck strength. Often, you will find the side you have neck pain on to have a poor tolerance to stress, load, and general function. This exercise acts as a means to make your neck more resilient. You can perform this daily, 2-3 bouts to good fatigue. Combine this with the below lateral neck strength exercise! Over the weeks, watch your neck strength improve; this improvement should also mean your neck is in general stronger and can tolerate more stress prior to fatigue, which can greatly help your pain levels.

Exercise can start with as little as 10x 3 second holds daily, and build up to 15+ second holds. Once you are able to hold for 10 seconds, you can then start performing the clocks for added challenge. Jot down your progress (for example, "Monday, 5 x 5 sec holds, and 2x clocks" prior to fatigue/pain.

Consult a healthcare provider prior to performing exercise to determine which exercises are appropriate for you. This video is for educational purposes only.

EXERCISE 2: LATERAL NECK STRENGTH CHALLENGE: Here is one of the many exercise you can do with a MotionGuidance "Patient Pack", from the comfort of your home. A good place to perform this is on your bed, all you need is a spot on the wall to hang the clock target. This exercise gives you an objective measurement of your lateral neck strength. Often, you will find the side you have neck pain on to have a poor tolerance to stress, load, and general function. This exercise acts as a means to make your neck more resilient. You can perform this daily, 2-3 bouts to good fatigue. Compare the endurance of the left to the right side, and aim for symmetry. Over the weeks, watch your neck strength improve; this improvement should also mean your neck is in general stronger and can tolerate more stress prior to fatigue, which can greatly help your pain levels.

Exercise can start with as little as 10x 3 second holds daily on the center target, and build up to 15+ second holds. Once you are able to hold for 10 seconds on the center target, you can then start performing the clocks for added challenge. Jot down your progress (for example, "Monday, 5 x 5 sec holds at center, and 2x clocks" prior to fatigue/pain.

Consult a healthcare provider prior to performing exercise to determine which exercises are appropriate for you. This video is for educational purposes only.

EXERCISE 3: NECK MOTOR CONTROL CHALLENGE: Here is one of the many exercise you can do with a MotionGuidance "Patient Pack", from the comfort of your home. A good place to perform this is seated in a chair facing a wall, or standing if you like. This exercise gives you an objective measurement of your movement control, in different quadrants of motion (arcing up right, down right, up left, down left along the butterfly shape). You may discover a certain component of this movement is more difficult, and you may want to practice this (if painful, practice in a smaller range of motion by moving further away from the flag- then get closer as you are able to perform the motion without pain. You can also work on accuracy of movement hitting different targets- start slow and build up speed as able. You can also use the clock for this, dialing out numbers: a helpful and inexpensive app is "CLOCKYOURSELF" and you can use the feature that calls out numbers of a clock and adjust the speed as you improve. Heres an example of a YouTube video in clinic.

Exercise can start with 5 minutes of practice daily- set a timer on your phone! You can start facing the flag, and progress to standing or sitting at a 45 degree angle to work on motor control in further ranges of rotation of the neck. Try to stay accurate, and increase speed only once your accuracy improves.

Consult a healthcare provider prior to performing exercise to determine which exercises are appropriate for you. This video is for educational purposes only.

EXERCISE 4: NECK POSITIONAL AWARENESS CHALLENGE: Here is one of the many exercise you can do with a MotionGuidance "Patient Pack", from the comfort of your home. You can perform this exercise sitting or standing, and all you need is a spot on the wall to hang the "JPE target", which stands for "Joint Positional Error". This exercise gives you an objective measurement of your skill at positioning your head in space. Your positional awareness may be affected by altered proprioception in your neck or abnormal vestibular inputs. This exercise is simple to step up: stand 4 feet from the tracking grid, center the laser, then rotate away a few times, coming back to center each time. Then, to test, you simply center the target, close your eyes, rotate away and then return, then open your eyes: are you where you started? If you are in the target, you have sufficient positional awareness skills per past research on Joint Positional Awareness in the neck.

Exercise can start daily practicing for 5 minutes (set a timer). Start with rotation right, then do left, do up, and down. You can also stand in different positions (facing away from the target) and practice "landing" on target in rotation (as opposed to always ending up directly facing the target)- this is added challenge. Keep score (ie landed in target 3 of 5 times). Check out our Patient Pack at www.motionguidance.com

Consult a healthcare provider prior to performing exercise to determine which exercises are appropriate for you. This video is for educational purposes only.

Reference: Treleaven J, Jull G, Sterling M. Dizziness and unsteadiness following whiplash injury: characteristic features and relationship with cervical joint position error.JRehabilMed.2003Jan;35(1):36V43.

EXERCISE 5: SACCADES CHALLENGE:  

Here is one of the many exercise you can do with a MotionGuidance "Patient Pack", from the comfort of your home. A good place to perform this is seated in a chair facing a wall, or standing if you like. This exercise is performed with the laser staying on center target. The eyes however are moving left to right at a fast pace. This can be performed for 30 second bouts. You can be moving the eyes left and right, or up and down. The goal is to keep the head in as centered as possible, while keeping eyes darting from target to target on the tracking grid. Exercise can start with 5 x 30 sec bouts eye darting left to right, and 5x 30 second bouts eye darting up and down, practiced daily- set a timer on your phone! You can make some modifications as described in the video. Consult a healthcare provider prior to performing exercise to determine which exercises are appropriate for you. This video is for educational purposes only.

EXERCISE 6: VESTIBULAR OCCULAR REFLEX CHALLENGE:  

Here is one of the many exercise you can do with a MotionGuidance "Patient Pack", from the comfort of your home. A good place to perform this is seated in a chair facing a wall, or standing if you like. This exercise is performed with the eyes STAYING FOCUSED on center target. The head however is moving left to right at a fast pace. This can be performed for 30 second bouts. You can be moving the head left and right, or up and down. The goal is to move the head in a smooth straight line, while keeping eyes locked on center target. Exercise can start with 5 x 30 sec bouts left to right, and 5x 30 second bouts up and down, practiced daily- set a timer on your phone! You can make some modifications as described in the video. Consult a healthcare provider prior to performing exercise to determine which exercises are appropriate for you. This video is for educational purposes only.