THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WALKING FOR THE PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH CEREBRAL PALSY
August 13, 2012
This post is somewhat of a re-start . I have made an announcement about starting these series THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WALKING FOR THE PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH CEREBRAL PALSY a good 2 months ago – but my full immersion into the depth of Salutogenesis matters kept me pretty much oblivious to the outside world for the past 2 months. Those were an extremely rewarding months for myself intellectually and I assure that all of you are going to be the major benefactors of these new ideas for years to come…
Anyway with the key pieces of the Salutogenic puzzle being in place – it feels like it is time to re-emerge and deliver on my previous promises – especially bearing in mind that all the videos for the "The Truth About The Walking" series have already been done back in May – all I need to do is to give you a little bit of a written context around them.
With "The Truth About The Walking" series we are going back to the story of Luca that I spoke about back in May Prevailing over tragedy -- ABR facilitates amazing recovery
First of all, that post illustrated the remarkable saving of the heavily damaged leg by the "simple" technique of Transfascial Viscoelastic Stimulation aka "Egg Rolling".
Back then I included a couple of before/after pictures that shown the remarkable recovery of walking abilities in less than 2 weeks after introducing a set of ABR exercises.
So in this post, you can see that walking transformation much clearer – in the form of a 3-minute video that plays simultaneously the 2 short videos of Luca's walking taken on April 26th, 2012 and on May 7th, 2012 – so you can see the dynamic aspects of where we started from and how the situation have improved within just 12 days.
Luca_Walking Tests April 26th vs May 7th_SIMULATNEOUS_YT HD from ABR Central on Vimeo.
Secondly, and more importantly – I wanted to use this opportunity to help your understanding of what walking is – what makes it work properly or improperly – starting with this post and following into the series of connected ones: "The Truth About The Walking…".
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WALKING.
Most of the people – including professionals – have a very intuitive perception of how walking "works" – the legs support the body, muscles of the legs contract, move the leg bones and so it goes – the legs carrying the upper body in space.
Well, I hope that by now you realize – that when it comes to human movement – intuitive is misleading. I'll actually go further and say – intuitive is not simply misleading – it's actually profoundly wrong.
Who pays the highest price for the intuitive misconceptions about walking? – You, the parents of children with Cerebral Palsy.
You are the ones who end up doing damage to your kids bodies out of your best intentions, you are the ones who are being guided by false perceptions of what makes the increments of progress, you are the ones who invest your efforts in the activities with the least of long-term rewards … This list goes on and on …
So I am inviting you to really follow the next few posts very closely, especially if your child has a quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy – because for spastic quadriplegic kids everything "intuitive" about movement is a sure path to destruction and failure…
Please click to keep reading
Things are very different for you, my dear readers – you have found yourself and your children in the extraordinary circumstances – hence you can't afford falling for those intuitive myths that most ordinary people live by… Yours is the extraordinary path, where the autopilot is not available.
in these "The Truth About Walking…" series I'll try to be more user-friendly –contrary to my usual 'dump-a-heavy-load-in-a-single-lump' presentation style – and divide the explanations into relatively smaller chunks, hopefully making the eradication of intuitive myths easier.
1st Post (This one).
- Live short videos before and after. April 26th and May 7th in concurrent run. No comments – just live raw footage.
That's just an illustration that counterintuitive approach to walking analysis works and works incredibly well.
That's an appetizer to these "THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WALKING…" series – no need to think much at this point –a child who barely drudged himself by heavily leaning on crutches 12 days after walks with a minimal support by a single hand and can actually make several steps completely independently.
- Extended before video (April 26th) with added comments – the goal of these comments is to help you to focus on the essentials: What were the essence of challenges on April 26th and what were the essence of breakthroughs achieved
Truth About Walking_Video 1_Live Analysis_Luca_April 26th_YT SQ from ABR Central on Vimeo.
The natural question everyone asks after seeing the amazing breakthroughs in Luca's walking – from two crutches and ground contact avoidance to unsupported walking in 12 days – "How did you do that?!"…
This is where I decided to leverage your keen curiosity of learning about the "How?" into sharpening your attention to more important questions: "Why?" and "What?" … Posts ## 2, 3, 4 of the series "The Truth About the Walking " are about these fundamentals. I tried my best to do them lively enough and richly illustrated to make sure that you do not get overly taxed with the heavy terminology and lines of text.
The answer to the "How?" question – is going to shows in the Post #5
Here is a brief synopsis:
2nd Post:
Introduces the Video 2:"10 +1 Key dilemmas of improving/developing the walking"
- Unfortunately most people – professionals included – fall into the trap of "intuitive action" – starting to train the walking by imitation and providing "support", succumbing to the fallacy of "teaching the brain how to control the walking" etc.
- The smart thing to do is to ask some simple yet fundamental questions first – and proceed to action only after making the deliberate choices
- Video 2 covers 10+1 essential questions that you need to be extremely clear about if you are to be smart about the walking development… here are just some of that:
- to bear the weight or not to bear the weight
- to focus on the upper body or to focus on the legs
- to target the muscles or the deeper fascia
- to be axial or to be pivotal
- to be longitudinal or to be radial
- to focus on long kinetic chains or to aim at the short ones
- to focus on the closed-chains or on the open ones
- to force fake "straightness" or to respect the intrinsic connectivity
The answers to these and a number of other questions have to be extremely clear in your mind. If some of those sound outright unfamiliar – doesn't mean that those are unimportant.
In respect to your child's motor functions and movement development think of yourself as a Mount Everest climber. Before venturing into such an endeavor it certainly makes sense to get familiar with the climbing gear, to understand the pros and contras of an oxygen mask, to learn how to put a tent under the howling winds and snow etc.
You can't just "wing it" as you go – because the unprepared are sure to perish… I am inviting you to adopt a similar mindset…
The Video 2:"10 +1 Key dilemmas of improving/developing the walking" provides you with a quickstart introduction into the amazingly intricate world of development of the walking…
3rd Post:
Well, if Video 2 :"10 +1 Key dilemmas of improving/developing the walking" had the intention of waking your awareness up –then Video 3: "The Main Paradox of Walking – Legs are the Weakest Link" – is sure to be a real shocker…
This video is going to turn around and upside down everything that you held as unquestionable truths about how the mechanics of a human body work :
- Re-thinking the fundamental underlying model of a walking human – "Tensional Bicycle wheel" framework as opposed to the "support from below" misleading " intuition"
- legs as the weakest links of the long kinematic chains of walking
Sure enough this video comes with plentiful illustrations of the walking analysis in a healthy child and in a child with Cerebral Palsy.
So you shouldn't be too worried about the complexities of visualizing the new model of walking – once you become aware that the conventional intuitive model of the trunk "supported" by the legs is not the God-given holy "truth" – then the flaws of conventional reasoning become obvious and the new understanding is easily embraced.
4th Post:
Video 4 "Smart How-To of Improving the Walking. Part 1." opens up with a quick recap of summarizing the previous videos into a 12 min compact form.
Then it proceeds into the next round of visuals illustrating how the "Bicycle wheel' legs work in healthy children – by following the developmental chain in a healthy child. I guarantee that you'll never be thinking of the legs in quite the same manner after watching these series… You'll see them for what they are – a liability that requires a super-strong upper body to deal with.
5th Post.
Video 5"Smart How-To of Improving the Walking. Part 2." is where the loop completes.
I return to the agenda that was set in the Video 2: :"10 +1 Key dilemmas of improving/developing the walking" and then go step by step – linking each of the 10+1 steps of goal setting with the specific actions provided by ABR techniques …
P.S. Thanks for your patience during my Salutogenic expedition exile and I hope that re-emergence of the ABR blog posts is going to be encouraging, educational and motivating for you.
Don't hesitate to leave comments and Facebook likes – share it with other parents... and I am sure that Team Luca is going to appreciate your emotional feedback as well...