Cathy asked what we do for physiotherapy.
Where I live in Siegen, Vojta is the therapy of choice for babies and children with delayed development. It is a technique that was developed in Munich, Germany and the international headquarters are nowhere other than in our local Kinderklinik. Needless to say the doctors all swear by it and when we spoke to our paediatrician about changing to Bobath, he told us it was Vojta or nothing (In Germany therapy has to be prescribed by the doctors, therapists are not first line practitioners).
Vojta is a way of provoking reflexes that contribute to normal movement strategies. Reflexes are provoked by stimulating specific pressure points with the body in specific positions e.g. baby lying supine with head turned to right, by applying pressure on the 6th intercostal space on the right and maintaining the position of the head, the baby should open both hands and drop her left shoulder as well as breathe deeper and longer. Mostly it works as they say it should but not always.
After only having one appointment in February (vaccinations and physio was ill) however our girls developed some bad habits -resisting all attempts to do the techniques effectively. Ciara threw herself into overextension which defeats the object of the technique, as she was supposed to flex her legs up to her trunk.
Needless to say we have been working for the last month trying to ease them out of these bad habits and still keep the momentum going forward. I'm not sure that we've managed that but at least Ciara hasn't been going into overextension the last few weeks.
I'm not sure if I explained the theory behind Vojta Therapy that clearly so I've included a couple of links that explain it a bit better
http://www.nidd.org/therapy_vojta.htm
http://www.vojta.com/cgi-local/ivg_eng.cgi
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4 comments:
Interesting.
My PT actually did something along those lines last week. I thought she was kind of crazy.
Ouuch...
Hi Cathy
It does work. After 2 treatments with a technique in prone we went from a child that didn't bend her legs (extension tone) when we were changing her nappy to a child that had her legs relaxed in flexion and abduction even when we were changing her nappy. I even know it doesn't hurt as the therapist demonstrated on me, so I'd know what it feels like. Unfortunately the girls do not what they are feeling so they intepret it as uncomfortable and scream.
We have eased off on what we've been doing and they are now enjoying therapy time again. It's rare one on one time with us!!
I'm glad it works for you!
I just take everything our PT says with a grain of salt (oh, heck, the entire salt shaker, really). She's sort of .. unimpresive.
But at least next time she starts doing random things, I'll not think she's totally crazy!
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