The Benefits of A Mobile Therapist: Achieving Goals at Home, the Community, and Life
One of the main reasons I decided to open Milestone Pediatric Therapy was I wanted to reach my clients where they were struggling most. The clinic environment, while good for task training and safety, does not in many cases simulate the real world challenges and environment a child may encounter during their day to day lives. A combination of clinic and real-world sessions is often the best recipe for success! The following blog goes over the benefits of mobile therapy for your child, from convenience for your family to meeting real world goals on a playground set.
Playgrounds are places children WANT to feel comfortable!
“My child was so engaged in the session! I have never seen them work so hard!”
That is a quote from a parent after a session at a playground. Both myself and the child were sweaty after having run around the playground using every piece of equipment and overcoming some fear’s the child had about climbing and equipment that required a lot of strength to play on. Working with children at playgrounds, play gyms, and other fun physical activities meets them where they WANT to be. Its a kid’s environment! Many of my kiddo’s aren’t comfortable in them however because they have strength deficits, balance impairments, or social anxiety about playing on equipment they struggle with. Because these children become so engaged in the session, having FUN, they end up working so much harder than they would have in a clinic session. As the therapist, close by, I offer a small comfort blanket while they are trying new things, giving them a confidence boost or lending hand when they have chosen something that might have been slightly too hard for them (again leading to a confidence boost that they COULD do it instead of failing again). I also spend much of the session instructing parents on how to assist their child through the same obstacles so carry over can be better achieved.
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Real world challenges overcome
Who cares if a child can navigate the stairs at clinic or jump off the stool during an obstacle course? No one does if the carryover isn’t seen while the child is trying to go up the stairs to their bedroom or play with peers at the neighborhood playground. Does your child struggle with a specific task while they are attending gymnastics? Or are unable to get into their church independently for a bible study class? Reaching out into the community to meet clients at their specific places of challenge and work through them is a HUGE benefit of mobile therapy. Some children, because of their motor programming difficulties, may have trouble applying gains made in clinic therapy sessions into a real world situation. The clinic session has worked on the strength, the balance, and coordination of the task but because it is a new environment, the child struggles to perform it at their church which is a goal discussed between therapist and family. Luckily a mobile therapist is able to have one, two or five sessions at the church (however many it takes!) and is able to meet that goal! Now your child is independent in entering the church and no longer needs your assistance to get to their class! What a HUGE confidence boost for that child!
“Having this session at home was just so easy! Thank you”
After the age of three, the state no longer provides therapy in an in-home setting and moves to school-based care. Unfortunately for some kids this means they either stop getting state provided therapy or their goals are only made for very school specific things for them to be able to achieve their education. While this is GREAT, and kids really need these services in school, sometimes it is not enough. Having only school-based education goals misses out on 2/3 of a child’s life: home goals and play goals! Children are meant to PLAY no matter their functional level and it is so IMPORTANT to their development to engage in creative play, social play, and gross motor play (where a PT comes in!). Gross motor play develops their strength, bilateral integration, range of motion, balance, coordination, and vestibular system. Proficient gross motor play leads to better social play with team sports or team activities such as tag. Better ball skills allows your child to participate in kickball with their class without feeling embarrassed. Better strength and balance allows them to climb onto a playground and race for the slide with friends. While there are only a few positive studies that have been done to see how treatment of coordination and gross motor skills could leads to better social and education performance. There ARE studies that show the negative effect or interplay between low gross motor and coordination skills and difficulty with social engagement or school performance.
Home sessions allow for parents to be more compliant with their child’s plan of care. Last minute cancels and reschedules are far less common with at-home care. Secondary to an increased treatment rate in a comfortable environment, children reach their goals faster and hopefully start improving in their other realms of development mentioned above!
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525,600 minutes…How do you measure a year?
Carryover and compliance with home programs is IMPERATIVE to meeting goals and progress in therapy for each child that needs intervention! Empowering parents to perform therapy at home themselves between sessions is the most important piece of helping a child improve. They see me once a week, for an hour at the most. There are 167 more hours in the week where a child and a parent could be working together on things through play to TRULY CHANGE that child’s performance and function. Many parents struggle with taking exercises from session - using clinic toys and equipment - and applying it to their home environment, toys, and furniture. Some parents are amazingly CREATIVE and other’s aren’t! And that is FINE. But having a therapist come in with their “therapist eyeballs” and make your mattress into a trampoline, flower beds into a balance beam, or couch into a mountain (with permission of course!) helps parents see the potential in the things they already own. I have so many parents ask… “should I buy that for my child??” when using a clinic specific piece of equipment. While they COULD and sometimes have to depending on the equipment, why spend the money on something used nearly never in a home environment? Most of the time something they already own could be modified to perform the same task. Home program compliance and confidence from the parents is a huge benefit of the mobile therapist.
The world is our oyster!
Think you want to do a session at dance class? What about an indoor flying center? How about a National Park?! The world is most certainly our oyster: Where your child is struggling, Where they would like to be successful, Where they want to have fun with their peers! In the short time Milestone has been open I have already gone and done some AMAZING things with my clients, supported them in tasks I never thought I would be getting into! I work closely with their instructors to help modify activities to help the child be successful or overcome musculoskeletal limitations. While therapy needs to focus on the functional most of the time, working on something highly motivation to the child can actually dramatically improve their participation in sessions outside of the motivating activity especially if that activity has some carryover into functional goals already laid out for them.
An anecdotal case where I had a client who’s depression surrounding his condition dramatically improved with the addition of indoor flying lessons. After starting these lessons there was also a dramatic improvement in participation in sessions as well as huge gains in progress toward functional self-care goals. I worked closely with instructors to work on modifying moves in the tunnel and working on exercises to promote his tunnel work. Treating the WHOLE child has meant vast increases in performance in many realms and true change in function and quality of life. The mobile therapist can help motivate your child to new heights not only functionally but emotionally as well!
Benefits of a Mobile Therapist are far reaching. A child is not only the impairments seen in clinic, or in school, or at home, or the community they are a sum of ALL of these things. Mobile therapy seeks to treat the child and family as a whole! Empowering parents with more confidence in home program compliance and assisting their child toward their goals. Uplifting children to reach new goals and try things they have only dreamed of (in a safe manner!).
And so we go…On the Road Again!