Movement Starts With The Core
The overwhelming majority of small babies with damaged brains have perfectly normal posture during sleep. When they are awake and attentive, looking at you, but not moving, they are similarly normal....
View ArticleMinimize Maladaptive Motor Habits
Whatever you do, your body will learn to do better. If you are walking badly, your body will learn how to do badly better. Over a long period of time I have asked parents why they go to physical...
View ArticleCore Support Options
As I have discussed last week, every pediatric therapy intervention that I am aware of aims, in part, to strengthen the core. And the exercises used should strengthen the core. The sad truth is that in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Back to Basics – Alignment Comes First
The basic rule “Alignment Comes First”, applies to hands as much as it does to the legs, yet in my experience, very few children with brachial plexus injury (BPI) and/or cerebral palsy (CP) affecting...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spasticity is a Body and Brain Habit
Spasticity is a term used to describe tone changes that are common in cerebral palsy. Unfortunately, it is a generic term that is effectively useless when applied to a specific child. Pneumonia is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A New Way Of Thinking About AFO’s – Spasticity Series #6
The boy on the left with a ball is wearing a set of standard issue AFO’s that block the spastic tendency to plantar flex at the ankle. The boy on the right has a new type of support that creates...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Quick Fixes – Take Your Therapist’s Hands Home with You.
For many children with quadriplegia or marked muscle weakness, one pair of hands is often not enough to help the child move well. A compressive garment is a Quick Fix. This young boy has severe...
View ArticleSet the Bar Higher
Recently, the father of a child with cerebral palsy asked me how to best discuss the recovery potential of his child. Here is the first part of his question. Q. After I read your blog, “A New Way of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
3 Steps To Hand Use: Alignment, Awareness and Activation
Babies first explore their hands with their mouth, gradually using them to explore and reach by 3-6 months. Yet even at the stage of independent sitting, a baby can still be fascinated with those...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Neuroplasticity and Hands: Doing The Right Thing, At The Right Time, and In...
Last week I wrote about Constraint Induced Movement Therapy or CIMT. This photo from the Children’s Hemiplegia and Stroke Association (www.chasa.org) is the best example that I have seen. The boy is...
View Article