Occupational Therapy News OTnews November 2019 | Page 46

FEATURE CHILDREN’S SERVICES
Initiating movement in play to
develop new neural pathways
Sarah Grimshaw talks about her practical experience working with
pre-school children and hemiplegia, using Modified Constraint Therapy
F
ollowing an occupational therapy professional
day, Sarah Grimshaw, a paediatric
occupational therapist at Kent Community
Health Foundation Trust, was encouraged to
consider using Modified Constraint Therapy with the
children on her caseload who had been assessed and
fit the criteria for this sort of intervention, in line with the
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)
clinical guidance on spasticity in under 19s (NICE
2012).
46 OTnews November 2019
‘We completed Modified Constraint Therapy (MCT)
sessions with a variety of pre-school children who
had experienced a hemiplegia,’ she explains. ‘These
consisted of six weeks of daily 30 to 40-minute play
sessions using a glove or tubigrip around the unaffected
hand, enabling the affected limb and hand to initiate
movement in play and help develop new neural
pathways on this side of the brain.’
Each week, two sessions took place with the
occupational therapist or therapy assistant, at home or in
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