DEVELOPMENTAL DELAY
While we want our children not to have any sort of problems but the reality of life does not work like that. Many children suffer from various types of problems, whether it is minor and often temporary like delayed speech or something more permanent or difficult.
The key is to get them on the right path by identifying problems and starting the process of rehabilitation as soon as possible.
What is Developmental Delay ?
Child development is defined as a process in which children grow through changes in skill development during their predictable time period of growth called developmental milestones. This delay can occur in all areas of development. The red flags precipitating referrals are as follows :
TREATMENT
Physiotherapy treatment should be started as early as possible as in early age the brain is able to adapt easily therefore children respond well to treatment. Therapy will help a child to learn how to complete their activities of daily living.
Goals of treatment:
- Increase muscle strength
- Stretching
- Improve balance
- Inhibit abnormal reflexes
- Improve coordination
- Achieving milestones
- Promoting independence with everyday tasks
Advanced approaches:
Roods Approach: This approach deals with the activation and deactivation of sensory receptors. the following maneuvers are used :
- Tapping
- Brushing
- Cry therapy
- Joint compression
- Passive stretching
- Vibration
Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation: this concentrated on mass and diagonal movement patterns. It focuses on three things :
- Increase motor learning by repetitions
- Reverse motor patterns
- Learning to relax the muscle and decrease spasticity
Constraint induced movement therapy : It is a behavioral approach to neurorehabilitation. There are three major components
- Repetitive intense therapy of affected limb
- Restraint of less affected limb
- Application of functional tasks that makes the transition from the clinical setting to everyday life easy
Orthotics : An orthosis is defined as a device when applied correctly to an appropriate external surface of the body will achieve the following :
- Relief of pain
- Immobilization of musculoskeletal segments
- Reduce axial loading
- Prevention of deformity
- Correction of deformity
- Improve function
If you have any worries that your child might have a disability or problem with their development, then ask for help. The sooner you ask for it the better for your child