Madi had a great last day in Rochester. The first part of her session she practiced walking with different devices. She wore her Spio vest to help with trunk support and proper alignment and her left leg was wrapped to bring her leg out of external rotation. She was encouraged to walk slowly with flat feet in her walker, pink canes, blue arm crutches and then by herself. She did a lot of practice doing reciprocal walking with her tri canes and is getting much better.
she also worked on controlling her steps and being aware of her balance when walking by herself. She had to take 3-4 steps and then pause and hold her balance for 3 seconds and then start to walk again.
She had some fun trying out different bikes to zoom around the gym.
She also worked on high knees and sit to stand using the methods from the bio feedback machine. We also discussed taping her left leg to help with her rotation instead of the wrap as Madi really didn’t like the wrap.
Some of the Recommendations moving forward are ditching her current AFO’s and getting hinged ones for school and using her SMO’s for therapy environments, using her Spio vest daily until her core improves, going into the pool 2-4 times a week to do water jogging, using heel sqweakers to encourage heel toe gait and doing serial casting on her left foot to increase range. Using a massager to bring awareness to muscles she needs to be using more and bio feedback was also recommended. We also discussed the importance of correct form and immediate feedback right now and how we have a unique window of time to make changes with her age in development and timing of surgery and the theories behind neuroplacticity. Form, alignment and awareness are key and we will consider many of these ideas when trying to plan out the next three months of therapy and deciding what the focus should be.
Madi Moves 