New ideas are used for treating developmental and functional problems, including injuries, congenital deficiencies and other neuro-atypical. Sadly, physical therapists who try these ideas can be hard to find. The increasingly popular method is neurodevelopmental therapy, or NDT.
At its core, Neurodevelopmental Therapy is a way to look at issues on a targeted, individual level. Therapists for kids with disabilities use hands-on methods and high-tech equipment to teach functional tasks. For instance, think of a boy who can't grasp a fork might set a goal to do it. The physical therapist might guide the kid through lifting the hand, reaching for the fork and recognizing what that's like and then picking up its weight. It's all step by step, and guided by touch from start to finish.
Neurodevelopmental Therapy is patient-driven, because the kids and other patients must set goals. For kids with disabilities, goals may be set by the parents. For adult patients dealing with problems such as TBI and stroke, the goal could involve walking, standing and more. Elite physical therapists who have used these strategies say that a patient's perception of treatment can make all the difference.
Besides the intuitive sense that it works, Neurodevelopmental Therapy truly gets real, powerful results. People treated with it need less help and fewer devices while achieving an improvement in proper positioning. Goals can be set, and reached, in speech, eating, movement and other occupational therapy tasks.
For kids with disabilities, pediatric physical therapists can use Neurodevelopmental Therapy to help with things that will make these children less reliant on others for care. They can learn to bear their own weight, climb stairs, or even crawl or stand. Practitioners of this method believe that some degree of improvement is possible for almost everyone, even if they have been diagnosed with lifelong conditions such as cerebral palsy.
The scientific research about Neurodevelopmental Therapy isn't very exhaustive, but the topic isn't hotly contested, either. Many of the studies have been done on relatively small sample sizes, so aren't widely generalizable. But it all makes sense and a growing number of physical therapists for children and other specialists are trying it.
If you or a family member struggle with speech, eating and mobility, consider finding a what is autism spectrum disorder San Diego, CA expert for a few sessions.
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