January 29, 2013

A rough start to the new year

Jace had a pretty rough start to this year, missing nearly an entire month of school due to bronchiolitis, he's finally returned to his normal schedule and resumed therapy tonight. Working on new goals for the next two years, we hope and see it as achievable to transition from the hart walker to a walker that will provide him with more freedom, maybe a pacer, we'll see how he does with weight bearing. In reflection over how important therapy is to a child such as Jace, I started to think of how far he has come in the last 3 years, thanks to intensive physical therapies. There have been endless benefits to receiving such therapy, including a gain in tolerance for his environment, a desire and urge to learn crawling, and in general, improvements in all areas where he previously struggled.

Ninety four percent of all children who undergo intensive physical therapy demonstrate an improvement in gross and fine motor skills. Sixty four percent of all children show an improvement of speech and fluency, but the major improvement occurs in the vestibular system. The vestibular system, through the position of the body, records and analyzes the muscle tone necessary to execute movement.
It is sad to learn tonight of those insurance companies who do not think that these therapies make any sort of difference. Hope to someday change that!

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