Therapy

March 20, 2011

Therapy

Regular readers of this blog will know that William has been receiving fairly intensive therapy for his difficulties since he was only a couple of months old. Currently he receives an hour session with a physio once a week, an hour session of hydrotherapy once a week, an hour session with the osteopath once a week, an hour session of group therapy with other mums and babies at the clinic once a week (combining physio and music and movement), plus i do physio, sensory integration, visual therapy and aromatherapy massage with him daily, and we go to a weekly sensory club. Plus he is due to start having speech therapy when he reaches a year old. It seems like a lot and some of the other mums at the clinic have been critical, saying it's too much for him, he doesn't need it all and it may even be harmful for him to have such intensive therapies, but we're starting to see some very promising results which i wanted to share here.

During the physio sessions we have been working on head and neck control, and holding and releasing objects - William can now support his own head for several seconds at a time and is improving in this every week, he now willingly accepts tummy time rather than screaming for the whole of it and he is trying to open his hands to let go of objects put into them. The physio no longer thinks he will need hand splints in the future, which is great news (she was worried that as he doesn't open his hands or use them in a functional way that the muscles wouldn't develop properly and he would need to have them splinted in an open position every night).

In his hydrotherapy sessions William continues to open his hands by himself to feel the water and his therapist reports that she can feel him making efforts to move his own arms and legs rather than relying on her to do it all. He absolutely loves water and i have been using it with him during therapy sessions at home, and he has been opening his hands when they're placed in a bowl of water and even trying to move his fingers to splash when i help him do this first.

The osteopathy appointments have been going really well so far and William is very relaxed and content during them and for a couple of hours immediately after. It's a little early to be sure whether they are helping him or not yet, but i think he is trying to use his arms, hands and legs in more purposeful and coordinated ways since starting the sessions and his seizures are the most under control that they have ever been (though this could also be due to the new meds or the aromatherapy i have started doing with him). We'll give it a little more time before coming to a verdict on these sessions.

The group therapy sessions at the clinic are as much for me as they are for William, as i have made friends with several of the mums there and it's nice to be able to catch up with each other and share problems, progress and advice. But William does enjoy the sessions and definitely gets something from them - he loves music anyway and listens very attentively to the songs we sing and is beginning to show signs of developing preferences for certain songs and anticipating them when the introductory music is played. Also i have noticed his hands become more relaxed as the session goes on and it becomes easier to wriggle objects into them at the end than it was at the beginning.

In our daily therapy sessions in the new sensory room William is doing great work and clearly enjoying himself and really benefitting from the calming atmosphere and specialist equipment. His visual skills have shown the most improvement as he is very attentive to all the lights in there and will focus on them for quite some time. He has started to be able to track light-up toys with his eyes when i move them slowly in front of him and will try to turn his head and eyes to look at some of his favourite pieces of equipment when he realises they are switched on. i am also doing visual work with him using his light-box around the house and he has been looking really nicely at various colours, shapes, patterns and black and white pictures using this.

William's sensory sensitivities are gradually decreasing, especially after body-brushing with the special brush the occupational therapist gave us, and he is much more willing to try out new sensory experiences rather than automatically trying to avoid them. At the baby sensory club we have found several textures he enjoys and i have been using these with him at home to encourage him to hold, feel and manipulate objects for himself. He will move his hand or arm across a piece of material he likes the feel of and several times he has wriggled himself into a position where he can get his cheek to rub against a favourite texture! i have noticed that his protests about sensory experiences he dislikes (such as having clothes pulled over his head) last for a shorter amount of time now than they used to and some clothes that he absolutely refused to wear he is now happy for me to put on him.

i have also been doing some speech therapy work with William, using my knowledge from working in a special needs nursery unit, because i know how important it is to start early with this kind of thing rather than waiting until speech fails to develop. So far William has shown some progress in this area by developing a new 'protest' sound, by showing interest in mirrors for the first time and by showing a reaction when a noise he made activated lights on a piece of equipment in the sensory room. He is yet to deliberately make a noise to cause an effect on a piece of equipment but i'm sure that will come soon.

William absolutely loves our daily massage sessions and has responded well to the aromatherapy oils i mixed to use with him. He has seemed less cranky, more alert and responsive and has not had any ear infections or so many big seizures since i started using them with him, but again it's too early to be sure these are effects of the aromatherapy and not just coincidence or down to something else. i definitely think it's worth continuing though.

So all in all very positive benefits from all the therapy so far, and i can't help thinking that if we weren't doing so much intensive therapy work with William he wouldn't have developed any of his current skills and would still be at the screaming, withdrawing from every sensory experience, completely floppy stage with no purposeful movements or vocalisations at all, not looking at or 'seeing' anything, not showing any preferences or attempts to cause effects at all. And we'd be putting that down to his disabilities and not have any idea of the potential lying inside him. Having seen what William has accomplished in just a few months i am now much more hopeful for his future and believe that with hard work he can achieve lots of things and have a happy and fulfilling life.

Thanks for listening to a proud mummy ramble on about her baby's achievements :)