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- Dr.Joni Redlich PT,DPT
Hello! We’re really excited to announce that KidPT is expanding!!! I’m thrilled to introduce you to our two new Therapists, Kate Mills CCC-SLP and Tara Wirth OTR/L, who have joined our team so we can offer you a range of services in one place! KidPT now offers Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy along with our Physical Therapy services. KidPT highly values looking at the whole child and bringing a team together will even better help children meet their full potential! Read more
This week is Balance Awareness Week! Balance can be affected by many different sensory and motor systems and they all need to work together and team up for us to keep our balance during life’s everyday challenges.
Here’s an introduction to our Sense of Balance.
Our vestibular system describes our balance system house in our inner ears. It becomes active before we our born, is tested out and activated by children as they roll and spin throughout childhood, and becomes more sensitive (no more spinning amusement rides!) as we age.
Here’s some more information about when things go wrong in this system in children.
Our somatosensory system is another big member of the balance team. This system includes touch (think toes in the sand) and also proprioceptive information, which travels from muscles and joints to the brain to tell us where we are in space. Here’s a vestibular patient and OT’s blog post talking about proprioception Here’s another great post on proprioception, which (yay!) includes the importance of alignment in core activation (more important than strength!).
Our third important sensory system of the balance team is vision. Children rely on vision as #1 of the sensory team for balance. As children get older, they must learn to integrate the three systems.
During a physical therapy evaluation, the different sensory and motor systems and how they are working together are assessed. Common problem areas are:
-Postural asymmetries and poor alignment affecting PROPRIOCEPTION
-Decreased VESTIBULAR activation
-Decreased functional VISION skills
-Decreased ability to combine postural control with these sensory systems to work automatically without effort
Call us to arrange a screening and learn how to improve your child’s balance skills within minutes!
A quick and dirty test to rule out a commonly missed cause and how to fix it.
Many parents and teachers complain of children with developmental, learning, and coordination challenges falling out of their chairs. They will see this during class instruction and during homework time. Read more
Physical therapists are trained to identify all of the things that are atypical, limited, restricted, weak, ineffective and abnormal. Once all of these problems are identified we develop a plan to knock down all of the things that are wrong. Our goal? To help someone accomplish something new or to regain a lost skill. Read more
With the death of Avonte, a young boy with autism gone missing last week for a while in Queens and a local 3 year-old with autism locally who was left on a school bus for 6 hours, it made me reconsider the safety of the students at the schools I have worked. The schools put many safeguards in place, but how do we a related service providers piggyback on those safeguards? Read more
I spent the day watching the faces of children light up as they received their new bikes. Their parents were also filled with joy for their children and were so grateful for the donations that led to free therapeutic bikes for their child. These children were all different ages and had various special needs. Read more
An NDT-based session will have a session goal that is a mini-version of a short-term goal. The sequence of the session is to elongate and align body structures and then activate movement patterns for a functional skill. The idea is that in order to achieve a functional goal, such as crawling, walking or jumping, certain movement patterns need to be coordinated. Muscles and coordinated movement can occur best when the body is properly aligned. The mini-goal is broken down into movement patterns that have to occur for that action to occur. Read more
I am writing this series on NDT in response to a few different interactions I have had with parents and a couple of physical therapists who are teaching physical therapy students.
A physical therapy instructor (NOT a therapist with experience working with adults or children with neurological disorders) asked me why I pursued my NDT certification? He wasn’t just being inquisitive, but his tone was expressing “why in the world would I pursue that?” Read more
This is the third part of The Balance Series. In the first part we reviewed the components of balance. In the second part we discussed the various vestibular dysfunctions that can occur in children. In this last article we will look at the different components of treatment. Read more