And on the right...well, not really, but she's trying...
We tend to get the "extremity freeze" when she's either really trying or really frustrated...this PT session was a little of both, I think.
New drill: I call this Superknees! Take a little piece of velcro, and have it *just* fit. Then Elena pushes her knees out to bust through the velcro. SUPERKNEES! (She tends to bust out by moving her right leg out, which allows her to have her weight on her left side, typical for her.)
One way to see how well our Knees Out message is sinking in is to have Elena go up steps. At home, she holds the railing with her left hand and my hand with her right. She has definitely improved her stance, and now has her knee over the heel (more neutral alignment) than before, but she still doesn't transfer weight very well. One problem is she has a hard time remembering to move her hands up the railing before she steps. Another is she doesn't know how to transfer her weight through her hips very well.
At PT, they have a stairwell that is thin enough for E to have handrail support on both sides. She looked pretty good here.
We finished up the session with the kick-scooter, but my camera ran out of batteries. One thing I have noticed in the past week is that Elena is doing more "pigeon-toed" walking, regardless of equipment (walker, loftstrands, hand-held). This was REALLY evident during scooter time, the tips of her shoes were trying to get under the board as she took little scoots. At first I though that this wasn't getting worse, but that I was noticing it more b/c the rest of her gait looked that much better. Now I'm not so sure. I feel like we have to be working harder on her knee awareness...she'll be tripping over her own feet before too long.
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