Pediatric physical therapy is a separate area of physical therapy.
During the evaluation and therapy processes, children should not be compared to adults. Children are new, live organisms that develop very quickly and this is the main factor that
sets and directs the way of physical therapy intervention. Therefore, it is evident that a program of intervention for children with motor dysfunctions is very complicated. In order to design a program of intervention, the physical therapist must take into account the interaction of biological, environmental and developmental factors that affect each child.
The aim of pediatric physical therapy is to train children with cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and other motor disabilities to gain maximum movement and functional ability. This process is achieved through the containment of pathological motor patterns while simultaneously facilitating normal motor patterns. The stages of human development (table 1) provide guidance to the physical therapist for the achievement of his goal and the efficient execution of the program. The physical therapist aims to make the child understand the nature of normal movements and to improve the child’s functionality. After all, the aim of physical therapy is to make the child as functional as their disability permits in order to integrate him/herself better in their social environment.
The physical therapist knows that each child is an active member of a family. Therefore, it is imperative to cooperate with the family, especially with those who are actively involved with the child, in order to train them on the physical therapy program, in order to achieve better results and to instill responsibility, self-respect and independence to the child with disabilities. The family must provide the child with constant and steady support in order for the child to grow, mature and gain independence within the safe environment that only the family can provide.
The parents and especially the mother must involve themselves as much as possible in the setting of new goals and in the expectations that the physical therapist has from their child as well as in the program itself, since it must be repeated in the house in order for the intervention to b continuous and successful. This involvement helps the parents to be more realistic regarding their expectations from their child. Usually, they expect more than the child can give them and forget to reward the child for everything s/he has achieved. At other times, they expect too little and do not encourage their child to function within the level that s/he has already achieved.
Any good physical therapy program guides and supports the parents in their attempt to repeat the exercises at home and helps them to overcome difficulties that may encounter such as feeding, sleeping habits, stress, dressing and undressing etc. in order to improve the results of their intervention.
