Final answer:
The guidelines for using touch in physical therapy to facilitate movement and improve muscle tone involve exercises that develop proprioceptive abilities and correct use of forces and torques. These exercises can include touching the fingertip to the nose without visual cues and performing tasks or movements based on verbal instructions.
Step-by-step explanation:
Physical Therapy and Proprioceptive Training
The field of physical therapy provides guidelines on handling and using touch to facilitate movement and improve muscle tone. One aspect of such training involves having patients perform tasks that require proprioceptive feedback, which is the body's ability to perceive its own position in space. For instance, a common exercise is to have a patient extend their arms and touch their fingertip to their nose with eyes closed, relying solely on proprioception rather than visual cues to correct arm movement. This can be more challenging if the cerebellum is impaired, such as after alcohol consumption which affects the cerebellum's function in coordinating movement.
Training coaches and physical therapists use forces and torques in therapy to help treat muscles and joints. Specific exercises may include routines under water to significantly increase the amount of force needed for movement, thus strengthening the muscles more intensely. However, they also must take care to prevent damage to connecting tissues in the limbs, like tendons and cartilage, which can be damaged by excessive forces.
Therapeutic exercises can include praxis, where patients perform a task based only on verbal instructions, requiring them to understand, translate into movements, and use both visual and proprioceptive sensory feedback to execute the task correctly. Another test of coordination involves patients performing rapid, alternating movements with both upper and lower extremities, which require careful planning and control from the cerebrocerebellum.