LEFT: Shelley Schmidt, PTA gait training with her patient Gabe, 18 year old from Rochester RIGHT: Justice encouraging her sister Tessa while she receives intensive PT at Euro-Peds( 7-year-old twins from Clinton Township)
multiple places to support, challenge, and encourage patients to stand, swing, reach, step, or whatever is needed in that session.
• Sensory Integration – Consists of manual techniques.
When you visit the Euro-Peds facility, you see children in their rooms, encouraged – often laughing – at the progress they make. They know they experience progress, and degrees of independence and strength, new to them. The care is personalized and continually reevaluated, as progress or stubbornness is monitored. There is no“ template” every case is special and treated that way.
In the second phase of therapy, a number of activities are practiced which include balance, coordination and functional activities such as head control, rolling, sitting, crawling and walking.
• Balance and Coordination – These skills are essential in order to maintain different positions as well as to be able to move through different positions independently.
• Functional Activities – Includes activities such as rolling, crawling, kneeling, transfers, standing, stair climbing, etc.
•“ Gait” Training – Walking with and without assistive devices, some of which are recent innovations and special to Euro-Peds.
• Suit Therapy –( if approved by physician) Euro-Peds was the first program in the U. S. to offer suit therapy for strengthening, balance and functional activities. Suit therapy increases awareness, and positions the child in a more ideal alignment during these activities( They struck this visitor as soft, friendly body armor). Suit therapy is typically done for one to two hours per day after hip x-rays are taken.
• Universal Exercise Unit( UEU) – Continues through most therapy. These 6.5x6.5- foot“ cages” were first offered in the U. S. by Euro-Peds.
Euro-Peds also makes available Home Exercise Programs( detailed written home exercise program with digital pictures. Videos can be provided for guidance) and referrals for orthotics, occupational and speech therapy.
Receiving specialized physical therapy from two to four hours daily, children usually do a two-week session the first time to make sure they can tolerate intensive physical therapy. After this first session, the PT can recommend whether two-, three- or fourweek sessions are best.
“ We never underestimate a child,” said Michelle Haney, PT, MSPT, director of Euro- Peds. She joined the staff of Euro-Peds National Center for Intensive Pediatric PT( Euro-Peds’ formal descriptive name) in 2001 … as a physical therapist. Her expertise and responsibilities grew, all beginning with a heart for her own special needs sister.
“ My parents were told she would never walk,” Haney recalled.“ But with great care and challenging treatment, at age 12 she did walk!”
She carries the empathy for those victims of neurological disorders, and their families. She also is very familiar, as is Euro-Peds as treatment center, with the many, many
Michelle carries the empathy for those victims of neurological disorders, and their families. She also is very familiar, as is Euro-Peds as an institution, with the many, many challenges attendant to special-needs situations: the non-medical factors.“ I appreciate the small things,” she said. challenges associated with special needs situations: the non-medical factors.“ I appreciate the small things,” she said.
But the“ small things” are not always small: Insurance is difficult to navigate; reimbursements can be slow and always challenging; Medicaid reimburses, generally 20 percent of PT costs. Et cetera.
As part of its mission, Euro-Peds will not turn away patients it deems suitable for its therapy regimens. Families who travel from out of the region are accommodated, for instance with the nearby Marriott Hotel that offers special rates in those circumstances.
Since we have mentioned smiling faces, and
“ never underestimating” their children, we present some notes of visits made during therapy in those bright rooms.
A cheery 9-year-old, Tessa, was fitted so she could stand up – with help, at this stage of her progress – but proud to be taking her first steps. Her mom said,“ There is no substitute for knowing what it is to move her feet and go forward!” The Euro-Peds equipment makes that possible. I can testify that smiles like hers are not a grimace of pain, but joy and an awareness of progress.
Matt, who suffers from Traumatic Brain Injury, began at Euro-Peds when he was young, and is now in his early 20s. He reports every day, two hours every day of PT, and is able to express his happiness. It is rewarding to see the good-natured bantering, not only words of encouragement between staff and patients; there is a family feeling.
Don is also in his 20s, and has been coming to Euro-Peds since it opened in 1999. CP is his challenge, but he has made such progress that he now assists with activities. This alone is an encouragement to newcomers and their families.
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Innovative Health- Winter 2017