NEUBIE in San Antonio
You have done the exercises. You have been patient about it. The muscle still will not fire the way it used to, and nobody has been able to tell you why. The NEUBIE is one of the tools your therapist can use to work on that.
What is the NEUBIE?
The NEUBIE is NeuFit’s patented electrical stimulation device. The name is an acronym for Neuro-Bio-Electric Stimulator, and the device is FDA cleared. It delivers direct current, and when it is paired with the NeuFit protocols it gives a therapist new methods for neuromuscular re-education. The reasoning behind it is straightforward. Your nervous system controls every muscle movement you make. When a movement dysfunction is what keeps you in pain, keeps an injury from settling, limits your mobility or takes the edge off your performance, working on the muscle alone only goes so far, because the muscle is doing what it is being told to do. Stimulation gives your therapist a way to work closer to that instruction: to get a muscle activating while you are actively moving, to find where your system is guarding more than the situation calls for, and to pair that input with the exercise that teaches the pattern. What the NEUBIE is not is a machine you get parked on while your therapist works with somebody else. It is a tool, used inside a plan of care, at the point in the plan where it is the right tool.
Two of our clinicians list it among the methods they use with patients: founder Dr. Mary Lou Lugo and occupational therapy assistant Amber Hargens. It sits alongside the manual therapy, the graded loading and the education that make up the rest of the room, and it shows up most often inside neurological rehab or post-surgical recovery rather than on its own. Whether it belongs in your program is a question your therapist answers at your evaluation, and answers honestly, including when the answer is no.
Who it's for.
Nobody books a course of NEUBIE. You book an evaluation, and this becomes part of the plan when it fits the problem. These are the situations where it comes up.
A muscle that will not switch back on
After surgery or a significant injury, strength often lags well behind healing. The tissue has repaired, the pain has settled, and the quad or the shoulder still refuses to do its share of the work. Stimulation gives your therapist a way to get that muscle contracting while you move, so the strengthening work has something to build on instead of stalling at the same point week after week.
When the signal is the problem
Some problems do not live in the joint. When the nervous system is what changed, the work is re-education: the right muscles firing in the right order at the right moment. That is what neurological rehab is built around, and the NEUBIE is one of the inputs available inside it. Whether it suits your condition is a clinical judgement, made at your evaluation, not a given.
Movement that has not responded
You have done the home program. You have been consistent about it. Something in the pattern still is not changing, and you are the one who has been carrying that. When a movement dysfunction is what keeps returning you to the same symptom, addressing it closer to the nervous system is a reasonable next thing to try, alongside the hands-on treatment and loading that make up the rest of your plan.
What to expect.
The device never leads the visit. Your evaluation does. Here is how it actually goes.
Evaluation first
Your therapist examines how you move, tests what does and does not fire, and works out what is actually driving the problem. Only then does the question of tools come up. If the NEUBIE is a fit, you will hear the reasoning. If it is not, you will hear that too, before treatment starts rather than after a course of it.
Stimulation paired with movement
Pads go on the area being treated and the intensity is set with you, not at you, and adjusted throughout. The current feels different from stimulation you may have had elsewhere. You are working while it runs: the point is to load and rehearse the movement with the muscle participating, which is what makes it re-education rather than a passive treatment.
The rest of the session
The NEUBIE occupies part of your 30 to 60 minutes, never all of it. Hands-on work, graded exercise and your home program still carry the plan. Most people come 2 to 3 times a week for 4 to 6 weeks, and your therapist reassesses as you go, keeping what is working and dropping what has done its job.
In Texas you can begin up to 30 days of physical therapy without a physician referral, so an evaluation does not have to wait. We are in network with roughly 45 plans and verify your benefits before your first visit. Tell us about any implanted device or medical condition at your evaluation so your therapist can screen for it.
My second time there in a year Dr Lugo knows here trade and helpful to allow me to function i.e. cooking gardening driving and sleeping well Liberty Professional & Support Staff is beyond reporch….
Where to go next.
Neurological Rehab
Retraining movement after a stroke, a brain injury, or a neurological condition.
Dry Needling
A thin needle into the trigger point that will not let go, so the muscle can finally reset.
Orthopedic Therapy
Post-surgical and injury rehab for bones, joints, ligaments and tendons.