Therasuit therapy in our village

"Me in action"

Aspects of a conductive lifestyle

There are many people who ask me for advice on all sorts of things. Often I am asked about therapies that parents, partners, carers or clients come across and wonder whether they should give it a go as part of their conductive life-style.

As I have said before here on my blog I experienced eleven years of trying out many different treatments and therapies as part of the conductive lifestyle that my partner and I lived.

Whenever my partner visited someone for massage, manipulation, or cranio-sacral treatment, to learn meditation or self-hypnosis I tried to be there too. Not only to watch but also to take part myself so that I could really feel what was going on. There were many occasions when I really did benefit from the treatment, especially the Kneipp-bath treatments, cranio-sacral therapy and self-hypnosis that I took part in alongside my partner for several sessions and courses.

This involvement in and experience of so many different methods has given me a sound background knowledge in many fields. I often know what I can turn to for my own needs and, just as importantly, I am also often able to advice my clients.

Having information in the form of brochures and website addresses is important but my own personal experiences are invaluable to me. They give me a much deeper understanding of whatever it is that I am talking about.

Most recently I have been asked about the Therasuit or suit-therapy as some people call it. The enquiries that I get are not only from Germany but from all over the world, although it is here in Germany that I have gathered most information about it.

I first came across the Therasuit in 1999 as the Adeli Suit from Poland. Many families that I met in Germany, but also from America and Canada, wished to try this suit-therapy with their children with Cerebral Palsy. The suit had been developed in Russia for astronauts who were returning from space missions after a period of weightlessness and therefore no weight-bearing movements of their limbs.

The exercise programme developed for people using this suit, a suit comprised of many rubber bands that give a resistance to movement, was thought to decrease the risk of damage to the wearer‘s bones, decrease the loss of bone density and improve the overall movement and posture of the astronauts who had been in a gravity free environment for many weeks.

The suit was developed later for use with children and adults with motor disorder and the Euro-Med Centre in Poland offered courses combined with other therapies to foreign families. One of the therapists from this centre eventually came to work in Nürnberg but to the disappointment of many families was unable to bring the suit with her, because of problems with the patent.

It was not until a family with a disabled child, the parents both physiotherapists, went to Poland for treatment that the suit became more widely available. They returned to America and developed their own suit, the Therasuit. They went on to patent this suit themselves and it is now used in many centres around the world.

Now I will get to the reason for the story

The therapist, who came to Nürnberg many years ago from Poland, where she had worked with children with cerebral palsy using the Adeli Suit, is still working as a physiotherapist at the centre where I often work. She has recently opened her own practice and has amongst the many different treatments on offer, the Therasuit.

Last month there was an open-day. It was an open-evening actually which was even better as more people were able to get there. Invited to this evening was anyone who was interested in the Therasuit and therapy equipment called a GIGER.

I have posted about this too on my blog. The Giger is another piece of equipment that I have tried and tested over the years and that many of my clients use, either at their physiotherapy sessions or at home. That’s it in the picture above.

I had to work until five o’clock on the Friday of the open-evening, but the father of my last client took Évi and me in his car when work was over to the next village where the German centre for Therasuit therapy is situated.

http://www.therasuittherapie.de

My friend, the polish physiotherapist, was delighted to see us. She already had a lovely little boy suited up ready to demonstrate and answer our questions, of which I had many.

The child had hemiplegia and it was wonderful to see that while wearing this suit he was moving much more naturally than without it. His balance was greatly improved, he did not trip or fall so much while playing football for example, and the position of his foot was improved by the positioning of the thick elastic bands.

Despite the clarity with which the child answered my questions and how the therapist explained her work with her clients while they wore the suit for two hours, I still was not sure. I thought it might be something for a couple of my child and adult clients to try out but I wanted to be sure before I recommended it to them.

I was delighted when having bombarded the demonstrators with questions for at least thirty minutes my Polish friend suggested that I put on one of the larger suits. Actually I do not know who was more thrilled, me or the little boy who had been co-demonstrating.

Now with his garment removed he helped me to don mine. It took quite a long time to get me strapped in and ready for some instruction from my little helper. The child led me through the therapy rooms holding my hand tightly to make me feel safe. He crawled on the floor with me to help me to find out how I could move on my hands and knees; he walked beside me and played football with me. While this little boy was working with me he asked me constantly how I felt.

How did I feel?

At first I felt like I was walking on air and I felt that I was about ten feet high. As I got used to the suit I still felt as light as a feather and much taller. I felt that I had, for the first time in ages, all my limbs in perfect alignment. My head was held up high and in the middle of my body. I felt like my weight really was equally distributed on both left and right feet.

I felt that it was good for me to have the suit on, but realized it would only be beneficial if I could remember this posture and copy it without the suit on. Apparently it is advisable to have three week’s worth of daily two-hour sessions for it to be possible to remember and keep the learnt posture.

While I was wearing the suit the physiotherapist changed the position of some of the straps to pull my foot to the outside, just as she would do for a client whose foot rotated inwards so I could feel how it worked. She then showed me how she could change the rubber bands to encourage the outward rotation of the whole leg and not only the foot. It was easier for me to understand the use of this suit while wearing it and having the bands changed for different reasons.

After I had worn the suit for about fifteen minutes I went on to use the GIGER machine. I have used this several times before but it was a much different experience using it while wearing the Therasuit. A GIGER is a cycling machine for both arms and legs. It was designed and created by the family of someone with MS to improve the coordination and balance skills. I remember well the feeling of alignment that I had after first using the GIGER almost ten years ago. I felt really refreshed afterwards too and had the same feeling of lightness as I had with the Therasuit on.

I wondered what I would feel like after working out with the Therasuit and Giger combined.

After one thousand rotations of arms and legs I was released!

I actually felt great when I had been helped out of the suit. I really could begin to imagine how it would help someone with a movement disorder. I realized that I was now holding my head in the correct position and this lasted for several hours after I had taken off the suit. My back was aching a little from having been corrected for so long, and I had to resist as I felt it gradually try to slip back into its usual crooked position.

I am sure that if I used the suit everyday for three weeks it would have done me and my back a power of good.

I am quite certain that there are some of my clients who would benefit too. I would like to find out whether some of clients would benefit if they were to wear a Therasuit regularly while taking part in a physiotherapy session or more importantly a conductive programme.

We have a date fixed for when I return to the group in Nürnberg for some clients to try it out. We are lucky that the physiotherapist has a practice just a five minute drive away. Other families travel from all over the country to attend, just as German families used to travel to Poland until the Therasuit came to us.

Notes

Nürnberg centre for Therasuit therapy -

http://www.therasuittherapie.de/THERASUIT-METHODE.html

Izabela Koscielny -

http://www.suittherapy.com/pdf%20training/Izabela%20Koscielny%20CV.pdf

Holiday treasures

I always manage to find a treasure or two to take home with me from Norfolk.

Often it is a hole with a stone around it from one of my favourite beaches sometimes it is a dried frog found beside the fish pond and saved for me by my Dad. Last visit it was a lovely album belonging to my great-grandmother.

This time it was something very different.

The pink object in the picture above is a pastry-cutter cube. I discovered it in the hardware section of a local department store when I called in to buy mothballs.

The elderly man who sold it to me was almost as enthusiastic as I was when he saw it. At first he was excited for a different reason. For not having to rummage through the kitchen draw to find the shape he wanted, but when I explained my need for something that little, and big hands with movement problems could grab on to without sticking nails and finger tips into the pastry, he shared in my enthusiasm too. In fact, we had quite a long conversation about the need for all sorts of tools for hands that have problems. He even asked me where I worked.

A few days after this day of enthusiastic discovery in Norwich I was in a different part of the world buying replacement pans for my paint box. I started to discuss the going-on-for-fifty-years-old paint-box that I have and use when I am in Norwich. It was given to me one Christmas by an inspired great-aunt when I was a very young child. I often wonder how she knew.

In the art shop I explained to the salesman and owner that this paint-box had bought such a joy to me during my childhood and to have had paints that I did not have to scrub at to get some colour on my brush had always been a treat.

I remained in the tiny art shop that sold just about everything an artist could need for quite some time nearly missing my train. I described to the man the joy that the children and adults who I work with share when I allow them to use my artist-quality water colours, at five pounds for a Series A, 5ml pan. I described how I tell my clients that the paints, paper and paintbrushes are really precious and that I expect them to be taken care of. My clients love the bright colours, and also the tiny pieces of paper that I give them that encourage the use of just the tip of their brush. They do not have the space on the paper to press down really hard or to make huge strokes and by doing so cutting the hairs of the brush on the metal. The strong colours and the nice grain of the paper encourage my clients to paint carefully and creatively just as they do me.

The wonderful man in the art shop was so interested in the story that he gave me my paints at discount price. This makes a huge difference when a Series A costs almost five pounds and the paper I chose almost one pound for an A4 sheet.

I have a lot more holiday treasures in my memories of this time in England and I have one other special treasure for the children at work. Something that I will use on Tuesday and photograph in Use.

More later.

Amazing

By Susie Mallett, from a 1981 sketchbook

Several weeks ago, right at the beginning of my holiday, I read a blog posting from a conductor who announced her “amazement” at hearing that one of her clients had realised why he was being asked to do a certain task in a lying programme.

The conductor described her amazement that a teenage boy was able to explain to another teenager the reason for holding a stick in the small of the back and bending and stretching the arms. The one told the other that it was so they could learn to pull up their trousers, (and to pull down the shirts and then tuck them in, I hope he was later told).

Now I have time to write about my own amazement

How can it be that these two teenage boys had not discussed with the conductors what they need to learn and how they can learn it?

It is our responsibility as conductors to teach our clients to solve problems. Part of this is to teach them how to practise movements that will help them achieve their aims and how to work out what movements they need to practise.

I have experience of working with seven-and eight-year-olds who are already adept at making up new games for their group mates to play to practise movements that are difficult.

If we begin our work when children are very young then there is a time when we teach them how to play specially chosen games with the mother beside them playing too and learning how to help. As children get older we begin to talk to them about the skills that they need to learn and what they can play and practise in order to achieve these. By the time they reach their teenage years clients will be taking responsibility for their own lives, deciding for themselves what they wish to participate in, and should be starting to discuss with their parents and conductors how they can achieve their own aims.

An abstract movement like bringing a stick up and down in the small of the back has to be related to dressing, or to reaching into a school bag that is hanging on the back of a chair, early on in a child’s life. How else will it be possible to relate the learnt movement to real daily life skills?

And as for a conductor being surprised that a teenager should ask and that another should be able to respond… words fail!

Reference

http://playingwithangels.wordpress.com/2011/04/30/angels-among-themselves/

A Family Affair

"Meadows and marshes in Norfolk"
by Susie Mallett, April 2011

Books and paints along the road to upbringing

I have made mention before on my blog of the Grandmother who writes books and paints pictures for her grandchild with athetoid cerebral palsy:

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2010/11/power-of-books.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/01/all-lives-are-exceptional.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/01/i-found-piece-of-furniture.html

Both the books and the paintings have been sold to raise money for the child’s various special needs. One of these is to attend a Conductive Education centre.

The family have been waiting for the time that they could take Hailey to experience Conductive Education for the first time and have chosen to do this in a group setting. They have achieved their aim and are right now making their first steps as a family on their conductive upbringing journey.

I received Google Alerts last week showing Hailey in action. In the film clips you can see her looking very much at ease thanks to some very good preparation and what appears to be a lovely environment. You can see her walking with fellow 1989-93-trained conductor, Andrea.

http://ipolitics360.com/videos/ConductiveEducationTheConductiveLearningCenter-wVxrDBHLRbw.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym0NIotzbkE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIHSU0aZpJc&feature=related

Well done to Hailey and family

Notes

Susie Mallett -

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/01/all-lives-are-exceptional.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2010/11/power-of-books.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/01/i-found-piece-of-furniture.html

The Conductive Learning Center, Grand Rapids -

http://conductivelearningcenter.org/about/

From Surrey to Sudan

"Home sweet home" by Susie Mallett April 2011

Here is something interesting for you to read while I get back into the swing of blogging.

I have been holidaying in the green-and-pleasant-land of home for a few weeks!

http://www.miraclessudanhomepage.blogspot.com/

Bits in-between for conductors

The boring street scene photograph above is a shot taken out of the front door at the very moment that Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge, arrived at Westminster Abbey on 29th April. On any other day this road, the A11, is a continuous stream of traffic from dawn till dusk.
The other pictures are of our local Street Party.

A little bit of my life

Fifty years ago I met the children who lived at house of the bottom of the lane where we played very often.

Yesterday, having watched The Wedding together, Dad and I took a stroll up the hill to the Resident‘s Association’s Street Party that was actually a lane party, in the lane where we played and where I learnt to do topples over railings.

The railings are still there and recently my sister and I discovered that such railings were actually called Topples in my father’s toppling days. There was a whole row of them at the end of his street. My eighty-four year old Dad recently revealed that he was quite an expert toppler in his day, and I thought it was only a girl‘s game! Sis and I remember Dad’s Topples from our visits to our Grandparents.

Yesterday we took the path down my memory lane. A lane where as children we played What’s the time Mr Wolf?, Hop Scotch and Chinese Skipping, met the boy with the pet jackdaw and got scared by what we thought were witches who lived on the corner. It is a lane that is now full of upmarket cottages whereas fifty years ago they were almost derelict, with two rows of outside toilets and washhouses for the resident‘s use. Quite a contrast even then to the houses that faced the main road where we all lived.

At yesterday’s street party I met the mother of one of my chums from my first days at school. I think I last saw her when I was ten years old and despite her poor eye sight she remembered me. I think possibly because I look like my Mum.

I was introduced by the local historian to some of the other residents as the person who knows most about our road because I grew up here. I moved in with my parents when I was six months old, Dad cannot remember if it was before Christmas or after, so it could have been 1957 or 58. My family home and my Grandparent’s pub are at the bottom of the hill and my school was at the other. I walked or cycled its length on most days for eighteen years, as had my mother when she was a child too.

The local history group has got me booked for questioning before I leave. They have already interviewed Dad several times and my Mum gave them all she could remember before she died.

After the Wedding fever it was back into the gardening hat for me. The shallots, leeks and peas are hoed, the marigolds and antirrinums are pricked out, the paths and steps are all weeded and swept, the compost heaps accessible again and the flower-beds ready for the planting of annuals.

All that is left on my list of essential to-dos are the digging of a patch of ground for the re-planting of lilies and the clearing of the brambles from beneath the best apple trees so Dad has access for fruit picking in the autumn.

Of course there are also the on-going jobs of weeding and watering, the sitting to admire the day’s work with a cup of tea in the evening and the picking of flowers for the kitchen windowsill. All not part of any list but things that I do with no need for reminding.