Cerebral Palsy in Children

Every child is an individual. We love helping kids to build the skills to be able to participate in their community and live the life they want to lead.

Our approach to assessing your child:

You know your child better than anyone else. We have a family centred approach to goal setting and physiotherapy management
We would love any information you can provide about what approach works for your family and what does not work. Any information, reports or scans from other health professionals are also useful.
You are very welcome to put information in writing prior to your appointment, especially if your child does not like to be talked about
In the initial consult we will spend time talking about what your family want to achieve from physiotherapy
We will assess your child’s functional mobility
We will look at muscle tone, length, strength and any other relevant tests for your child

Issues that some families with a child with Cerebral Palsy might want to address with physio can include:

Walking
Running
Activities using the arms
Posture
Muscle length and strength
Assistive equipment
- We can assist with basic equipment

Physiotherapy approaches that families with a child with Cerebral Palsy find useful:

Activities that you and your child can do at home
- Practice in between Physio sessions helps your child gain faster improvements
Pilates and Physio Fun
- Individual session or ‘groups’ of 2
- Kids love using the Pilates equipment
- We love using our Pilates equipment to build movement skills like:
  - Utilising muscles that are hard to activate in daily activity
  - Core strength
  - General strength
  - Modifying muscle tone with specific movement
- Classes can also include skills such as
  - Balance
  - Throwing
  - Catching
  - Running if relevant
  - Jumping if relevant
Treatment is tailored to the individual so other approaches may be required
Visits to schools, social or sports activities in the community can be useful. We enjoy adapting your child’s environment to make things easier for them. We assist in building both the capacity of children and those who help them to be able to make modifications that allow greater participation.