Tap Dancing

We had our weekly PT at Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center (KCRC) last week. E was awesome.

They were mainly working on weight shifts/extension, focusing on the right side, trying to make Elena aware that she can keep her right knee "out" when bearing weight.
Half-kneel (right), with help. Note she rounds her back to try to "lean" into the movement rather than shift through the hips to bear weight over the knee. Left side (not shown) does this much better.



Half-kneel (right), with not as much help. Knee caves in.



Next they tried to make E aware of her movements by using play-doh. Emily asked E to squish the play-doh with her knee. It worked, a little (squishing not shown).



Dorsiflex practice with play-doh--Elena is supposed to collect the pieces on her toes to make a big ball. She has to lift her leg up, then try to flex her toes to get the pieces.
Left is okay...I think the beans and rice bin worked better...



Right...hmm. Knee lift is good, but the isolated movement in the ankle just isn't there.



The big activity of the session was tap "dancing"! Emily took shoe taps and affixed them to E's shoe heels using sticky tape. The idea was that she would only tap if she landed heel-first as she walked. It worked beautifully...but it is EXTREMELY labor-intensive for the operator(s). Emily would cradle Elena's hips, trying to get her to move the upper part of the leg and then kick the leg straight, aiming for the second Megan's hand. Then she can drop the heel and tap. She did it on both legs, but it was slow going. Elena was much better at it by the end of the session.

Kicking to meet Megan's hand (done every step, shown close-up here):



Zoomout pics





Whew. My back hurts just looking at those pictures.