Ok, here are all the wild and crazy ABR details. The longer we are involved with ABR, the more information, techniques, etc we learn, so I came home from this trip with a head completely stuffed with information.
This next three months will definitely be the era of the head. We have a l-ot of work to do on Charlie's head.
There are plenty of people who wouldn't be real thrilled to come home with a passel of head exercises. Actually, I probably would have been one of them six months ago. But I've had more time to think about it, and I'm starting to see the value of them. ABR says that if your head isn't right, then there's no way your neck and shoulders will ever be right. By extension, you'll always be working with poor alignment and posture, which effects every aspect of movement. In a more literal sense, it's easy for me to see that your brain is kept in your head and if your head bones are messed up then it might compromise growth in development in one of your most vital organs.
So we're working on Charlie's flat head. I've got multiple exercises targeting the very flat back of the head he's got. In case you're wondering, a normal head has a very noticeable curve along the back. If you look past Charlie's curls, you can see that his head just shoots up straight from his neck. You'll see this a lot in CP kids. Please don't fall victim if your neurologist tells you that this is because their brains aren't developing properly. I'm calling the chicken or the egg on that one.
Most of our other exercises address Charlie "shoulder girdle." Imagine you have tight, stress-filled shoulders--that's what Charlie's shoulders are like naturally. We're working on bringing them down and back ( what your momma called good posture).
In addition to all this, the good folks at ABR are developing a new type of exercise--one that in test-runs has shown great promise. The thing is, it's weird. It involves a deflated playground ball and I feel totally odd using it. Right now I'm just doing general work with it--getting familiar--so most of those exercises are directed at overall trunk strength. My brother has demanded a demo, so here' s a quick little video of it:
What did I tell you? Weird lookin', huh? Luckily, these ABR people are good in the results department, so I'm not too worried about it.
We recently finished one year with ABR so in the next few weeks we'll be getting our yearly assessment. I'll let you know when we get it and we'll see how much progress Charlie's made in a year.
