Cerebral Palsy & therapy.

Although Cerebral Palsy is a lifelong condition that can’t be cured, there all a whole range of therapies that can help ease or help the effects of CP. In this post i’ll be explaining each therapy and my thoughts on how they help.

Physiotherapy – This type of therapy focuses on a persons everyday movements such as sitting, standing & moving. A Physio therapist will help a childs movement by using a variety of streches and body exercises.

Occupational therapy – Occupational therapy is to help you out during your everyday life by using specialised equipment including standing frame, special seating, stair lift, walk in shower or any otger equipment which may make your everyday life easier.

Hydrotherapy – Hydrotherapy is a water based therapy that is carried out in a pool but unlike swimming the water is normally alot warmer than a regular pool. During a hydrotherapy session you will preform a number of different exercises usually instructored by a physiotherapist. This type of therapy is normally used to relieve muscle and joint pain.

Speech therapy –  This form of therapy will help improve communication skills by helping you to prounce words more clearly, learn new words, put words into sentences or using alternative ways of communication e.g commumication boards, flash cards or electronic communication aids.

Aswell as these common forms of therapy while searching online, I found a list of therapies I had never heard of but apparently these other therapies have some positive effects when it comes to helping people with Cerebral Palsy.

Music therapy – Music therapy can take on a few different forms depending on the persons needs, it could include anything from learning to play an instrument, writing a song or singing. Music therapy will can help improve a number of skills e.g communication, physical or social skills.

Play therapy – The clue is in the name, this type of therapy uses play for young children with CP to help increase confidence and remove any social barriers they might face.

Social therapy – Some people with Cerebral Palsy struggle with building and maintaining relationships which will obviously leave them feeling lonely or isolated, so social therapy is normally preform in small groups to help people build and maintain happy and healthy relationships in a variety of settings.

The list above is just a small list of the possible therapies avalible for children or adults to help improve the effects of thier Cerebral Palsy. Although I would really like the chance to give all these therapies a try, I have only ever used physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and occupational therapy.

As a young child I didn’t particually like any of these therapies, as I hated being taking out of class during school times and I also didn’t like physiotherapy as it caused me pain at times. Looking back now I realise how important having therapy was for my mobility and how much it has helped me. So i’m very sorry to any physiotherapist I shouted or moaned at during my school days 😉

So how do you guys feel about therapy?..what ones have you tried? And what ones do you find helpful? Let me know, I love hearing your thoughts!