Physical therapy is an integral part of helping children with developmental disabilities and delays enhance their mobility to reach their highest potential. For children with gross motor delays and neuromuscular conditions, physical therapy via a doctor’s visit can help address strength, balance, coordination, endurance and sensory integration – and is a critical component of comprehensive services offered at LifeROOTS for children with special needs.
At LifeROOTS, our skilled and experienced pediatric physical therapists work closely with each family to create a personalized therapy program to address each child’s specific needs. We begin with an initial evaluation, looking closely at how a child moves, plays and walks, as well as potential postural or alignment problems and sources of pain to provide a full assessment of each child’s situation. After the evaluation, we work to create a specific treatment plan of physical therapy, to address the identified needs, with examples of treatments including the following services:
- Strengthening
- Motor learning
- Tone management
- Movement and mobility
- Developmental activities
- Balance and coordination
- Use of assistive technology
- Recreation and play,
- Adaptation of daily care activities and routines
Our physical therapists work closely with each child and every family to help children to develop and enhance their mobility, enabling them to enhance their gross motor skills and safely participate in a wider range of activities and achieve their highest level of independence. With our therapists experienced and trained in working with children with special needs, they are able to provide children with developmental disabilities with the targeted PT services specific to their condition – including helping children who use adaptive equipment such as wheelchairs or other forms of supports learn how to best navigate various environments. We use a number of physical therapy tools and techniques in order to help each child, including stretching, strengthening and endurance training to enhance a child’s capabilities. Our PT team is experienced in working with children with a number of different conditions, including developmental delays, Cerebral Palsy, Down syndrome, autism, neurological disorders, hypotonia, and genetic disorders. Sometimes, these disorders will need further action than physical therapy. For example, Cerebral Palsy can lead to hip dysplasia and scoliosis. These conditions can require surgery to improve the quality of life and for ease of living with the condition. It’s important that in this case, children’s orthopedic doctors are contacted to assess what the best choice is. For children, they have a much higher risk of acquiring conditions like scoliosis. Due to this, it’s important to look out for symptoms. If an individual starts to feel back pain, it might be worth visiting a website like scoliosisinstitute.com, for example, to see what sort of treatments are available. It’s never easy living with medical conditions like these, however, there are treatments that can make them more manageable.
At LifeROOTS, our pediatric physical therapists are trained to work one-on-one with each child/family to help facilitate motor development and function, improve strength and endurance, enhance learning opportunities and ease challenges with daily caregiving – helping each child to become more independent and reach his/her physical potential. Using their expertise in movement, our physical therapists work one-on-one with each child/family through the process of examination, evaluation, diagnosis and intervention.
Signs Your Child May Need Physical Therapy
Although babies and young children all develop at different paces based on different factors, following are some general guidelines as to when a family should consider evaluation from a physical therapist:
- Baby prefers to turn head only to one side
- Baby is not bearing weight on legs by 6 months
- Baby is not sitting by 8 months
- Baby is not crawling by 12 months
- Baby is not walking by 18 months
- Child only walks on tip toes for more than 6 months
Call us today at 505-255-5501 or email us here to learn more about our Physical Therapy programs and services – and how we can help children with a wide range of gross motor issues enhance their strength, mobility and independence through the benefits of one-on-one physical therapy.