Therapy Update

One thing that we’ve always worked hard on in therapy is trying to strengthen Ryder’s left arm.  With strength comes coordination, so the stronger it is the better his recovery will be.  Strengthening an arm that someone doesn’t want to use is really hard, therefore Lefty is pretty weak.  But Miss Abby has been trying to get him to ride this scooter because it would be perfect for upper body strength.  The most he has gone is like 2 or 3 feet and then he wants to get off, but on this particular day he had a little bit of extra motivation:

 

That’s right…we had the brilliant idea of putting the vacuum at the other end of the hall, and what do you know, those little arms started doing some major work.  He went 18 Feet!!!

We’re really going back and forth about how and when to do the casting on his right arm.  We all want Ryder to get the most out of the Constraint Therapy, and we don’t want to traumatize him in the process.  So for the time being, we’re using an immobilizer then wrapping it up (because he knows how to get the velcro off) for short periods of time.  Taking Righty away forces him to use Lefty, and it’s amazing how much he really does when it’s his only option:

Kinesio taping is something that I LOVE and think plays a huge part in the success of Ryder’s therapy.  I really don’t know how to explain what it does, so here is what I found “the Kinesio Taping method is a definitive rehabilitative taping technique that is designed to facilitate the body’s natural healing process while providing support and stability to muscles and joints without restricting the body’s range of motion as well as providing extended soft tissue manipulation to prolong the benefits of manual therapy administered within the clinical setting.”  Ryder’s OT always tapes his left hand (that’s the blue stuff above) in a way that pulls his wrist back into a position that allows him to open and close his hand easier.  His PT always tapes his left foot (that’s the tan stuff below) to give his ankle support and pull it out of pronation.

In PT, Miss Erin always sets up obstacle courses for Ryder and gives him lots of different activities to accomplish.  One thing we’re trying to overcome right now is the fact that he never looks down when he’s walking and just kind of shuffles his feet, which is disastrous because he’s always tripping and not conscious of his surroundings.  Some of the new things he’s working on are the balance beam and the trampoline:

 

 

He has never liked being unstable, so the trampoline is a big step for him.  And the balance beam is pretty challenging because it requires him to consciously put one foot in front of the other which means he can’t just drag Lefty behind. 

These women are amazing with him and have helped him come SO far.  Ryder absolutely loves them both and gets so excited on Thursday’s and Friday’s when its time to go to “DEYAPEE, Yayyyy!”.  He even asked Miss Erin to be his Valentine today! 

Some proof of just how far he has come…He is now riding on a toy car and making it go forward!!  This has been such a hard concept for him to learn, even when he was in a walker he could never make it go forward, so to see him ride this toy car is HUGE.  Daddy took him to therapy last week and got to be there for the first time he made anything go forward…always showing off for Daddy!   Another accomplishment is watching him go up and down the stairs by himself, so proud of my boy!

At home when we wrap Ryder’s arm up, we wrap Daddy’s up too and they sword fight…it’s the best idea we could come up with to make it seem fun!  So after they sword fight we try to do some activities that will require him to use Lefty and when he’s tired or frustrated he’ll say “take sword fight off, okay??”.  When Paw-Paw was here, he got to do the honors of being wrapped up with Ryder, here they are using their Lefty’s to play:

 

We’re still hard at work trying to get Ryder’s brain to make new connections in areas that were lost, and all the hard work is really paying off!