foot mobs

During my neuro prac, I was treating a man who had recently had a parietal tumour. One thing himself and I wanted to work on was his standing posture to prepare him for walking. On observation his standing posture was as follows:
- good head control and shoulder alignment
- Lumbar lordosis
- Increased weight bearing through the right LL
- (L) hip adduction and IR
- (L) knee flexion
- (L) foot plantarflexion and pronated

To improve his standing alignment, strengthening of his core muscles, abdominals and LL was the main aim. However I wanted to do something that would hopefully show more 'instant' results to prove to my patient that he could stand well because he was a really intelligent and motivated guy. So i tried some foot mobs. I did as many mob directions as possible through the ankle, arches, tarsals and toes etc to get some sensory stimulation on his left side.
With some additional facilitation at his hips to gain equal weight bearing on both LL, I was so suprised how well the foot mobs worked to influence a better foot posture and in turn improved alignment of the knee and hip.
From then on we started each treatment with foot mobs to give him not only more proprioceptive awareness but confiedence as well.
That prac session really did pay off!