Over the last couple of days I have been browsing the web in my quest to learn more about endless possibilities of Living with Cerebral Palsy, I have a friend who is currently having Spider therapy you may of read about him anyway he is an inspiration to me and also inspires we more to want to achieve more myself. We chat quite a lot and compare our progress and I have even been in communication with the therapists there, they are as impressed with the things that have been happening to me of late.
This inspired me to want to find out as much as I can to how and why they things are happening the way they are, anyway I have sent out a few emails to different conductive education websites and physiotherapy sites and I am please to say have had quite an interesting response
One particular one has given me food for thought I sent out the following email out
Reciprocal walkers for people with CP
Please let me give you a little background as to what has been happening to me recently, I have Spastic Diplegia Cerebral Palsy since birth which effects mainly my lower limbs and a little in my arms although its not really that noticeable. I was also diagnosed with Neuromuscular Scoliosis in my 20's and under went a Posterior correction with Harrington rods and a spinal fusion T10-L5 in 2003 which was hugely successful and the best thing to happen to me as I have been pain free from the minute I woke in the recovery room and its great.
I have had different types of surgery throughout my life a lot of them were orthopaedic ones and in 2004 I had an athrodesis done of my left knee where it was fused straight and again was hugely successful and it has allowed me to walk again after many years of pain and not walking it is nice to be able to walk again with the frame.
Over the years I have walked with frames wheeled and non wheeled, crutches, and last October my physiotherapist and I decided to give a reciprocal walker a try as that to me seemed a more natural way of walking compared to the Zimmer frame I had been using, I maintained for a long time that it never felt right to me because it didn't feel to me that I was walking normally. The last year I started to use this frame and wow what a difference I can't quite believe what is happening. It took me a while to get used to the pattern but within the first week I was away I then noticed after a couple of days I felt totally different in myself all my spasticity had gone and has remained gone my movement has improved 100% and I can do more and more each day and cant quite understand why its happening my physiotherapist thinks I have been doing my own conductive education and it has open up nueropathways reconnecting making things happen as they should be.
In your work as a Neuro-Physiotherapist / conductor have you ever worked with reciprocal walkers with people with CP ?
I hope you don't mind me asking the question and would like to thank you for taking the time to read my email
And this is some of the reply that has interested me greatly:
I have not used the reciprocal walkers with any of my clients . I am interested to hear the difference that has made for you. I believe because it is creating rotation in your trunk and pelvis ,the rotation also crates eye movements side to side which reduces the spasticity. nearly all Dipelgia fix their eyes as they are walking. when the eye movement’s changes due to rotational movement’s fantastic changes occur
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