Vibration therapy uses a gently buzzing platform you stand on, hands on the side rails, to reawaken the deep stabilizing muscles around your spine and joints after a crash. Your technician stays with you and coaches your posture the whole time.
You get this treatment only if your physician orders it, and your physician also sets how strong it is.
What is vibration therapy?
Knees a little bent and both hands on the rails, you stand on the platform while it runs. It is one-on-one: your technician watches your position and balance from start to finish.
How does it help after a crash or fall?
After a collision, the little muscles that brace the spine and joints often stop firing, and bigger muscles clamp down to fill in. The vibration prompts those small muscles to switch back on. Retraining nerves and muscles to work together again is what neuromuscular re-education means.
What does it feel like?
A rapid, gentle hum runs up through your feet and legs. Keep your knees soft. You can step off at any time.
One-on-one: a technician never leaves your side during this treatment, and the clock times it begins and ends are written into your visit note.
Who should not have it?
- Pregnancy
- A pacemaker or another implanted device
- A leg blood clot, recent surgery or a recent fracture
- A history of seizures
- Retina trouble or recent eye surgery
- Kidney stones or gallstones
- Feeling dizzy or unsteady that day
Each session opens with your technician reading the safety questions aloud to you. A changed answer sends the decision to a physician before the machine is turned on. Saying stop ends the treatment, any time.
How long does it take?
Roughly 10 minutes in all, done in short rounds with breaks.
What to remember
- Soft knees, hands on the rails.
- It retrains the small muscles that keep you steady.
- Dizzy? Say so and step off.
Show us you have it: Take your stance on the platform for us before it is switched on. If any part is unclear, ask us to go over it again; there is no limit on that.
Vibration is often part of care for whiplash. If unsteadiness is your main problem, your physician may also order a balance and fall-risk assessment.
Other treatments in the program
- Heat and cold therapy
- Traction chair
- Neck decompression
- Laser therapy
- Shockwave therapy
- TENS (gentle electrical stimulation)
This page belongs to the Gateway Midwest physician-directed physiotherapy program. On Natural Bridge Road, the physician who examined you signs each order, and no treatment runs without a physician on site.
Hurt in an accident? Start here.
You do not need a lawyer, a police report or a referral to be seen. Bring your symptoms and we will work out the rest.
Monday–Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Same-day appointments are often available for new accident and injury patients.