Week 2: Entry 3

Friday was another interesting day with the opporunity to go and treat a patient who was in the PMH day care who has been referred to DSC for services but because she hasn't been picked up yet she is still getting physio for gross motor delay from SCDC. This little girl is 21mths and has lissencephaly which is a neurological disorder that is characterised by a lack of gyri in the brain. As a result she is intellectually and physically disabled and will be for the rest of her life.

Our role as physios was to try and reduce the amount of developmental delay in her gross motor skills be encoraging WB through arms and legs, moving herself into sitting and rolling as well as generally improving strength in her core and extremities.

We treated her in the day care setting which is very beneficial in a number of ways. Firstly it is a very comfortable environment and also when other children see what she is doing they want to do it to. This is a great opportunite for her to watch and learn by copying and also as a motivational tool.

The main exercises I did with her was to facilitated 4 pt kneeling, sitting and pulling to stand. The most challenging part for me was using the best handling and what hand to put where to provide best support as well as allowing the child to work and strengthen their muscles simultaneously.

I really enjoyed this experience of working with an intellectually disabled child and now appreciate how much more difficult it is to make progress mainly due to their lack of motivation and that the changes made are going to be very slow. I feel that my handling skills are improving but definitely need to keep practicing to try and make my movements seamless.