ABM/Movement Therapy

Last weekend Sadie did an intensive therapy session with Michelle at Movement Lesson. We've seen Michelle a number of times in the last 6 months or so, but when we asked her she said she's really seen the most progress not when children come weekly, but when they come 8-10 times, twice a day, for 4-5 days. So we scheduled to see her over President's Day weekend. 9:00 and 3:00 Friday-Monday. It was a lot of car riding. Sadie did a good job. It wasn't until our very last session that she had to take a nurse-nap break. When we first started going, Sadie needed this kind of break every session.

I've talked about this kind of therapy before, so I won't get into that. (you can read about it here) But I do want to talk about Sadie's progress through this therapy. Michelle worked a lot on her back. Many things are related to our spine and its curvature and how well it's supported. A lot of Sadie's inability of holding her head up comes with the rolling of her back. It's like she is a little potato bug and when she gets tired or mad she just curls up! Michelle spent a lot of time teaching her how to sit up straight and hold her head up high.

She focused a lot on sitting with Sadie. She worked a lot with her hips, trying to release the tightness there that keeps her from being able to support herself. By about half way through the weekend, Sadie was sitting (supported, of course) cross-legged! She also spent some time making efforts to uncurl Sadie's feet. It's interesting how we take something like sitting for granted, but for Sadie it's so hard because she spends so much time curling up like a potato bug! But sitting is so important. When Sadie can sit, it will open a world of possibilities for us...in the tub, in her high chair, in the stroller, in the grocery cart at the store, even just being on the floor playing with toys! I am really anxious for Sadie to be strong enough to sit.

We have noticed a lot of improvement in Sadie's trunk stability after these 8 sessions with Michelle, and so have Sadie's other therapists. All of them have really felt like she can hold her head up better and for a longer amount of time. Michelle also did this thing with Sadie where she would rock her back on her back, with her feet over her head, then rock her forward and use the momentum to propel her into either sitting or even standing. I had never seen her stand so straight and so tall before this weekend. It was obvious she was learning to use those core muscles to straighten, intead of curl, that spine.

I think though what has improved the most since seeing Michelle for this intensive therapy session, is Sadie's vision. Weird, right? It's supposed to be movement therapy. But it's neurological, which is the root of her visual impairment, so it effects and improves this area too. Sadie's vision has been "on" more and more during the day. She seems to be tracking objects better when in front of her face, and she is able to fix on something for a longer period of time. She seems to also be better at using her vision and doing something else at the same time. Because her brain function is limited, it's hard for Sadie to do two things at once...like scream and hold her head up, or use her vision and swallow her food, etc. However, she's been using that vision this week while on her tummy holding her head up, in sitting position, while eating, while nursing, and in the car.

Here's a video of what Sadie looks like when she's using her vision. You'll notice she's trying really hard to focus on me, you can tell by the flutter of her eyelids. She is so concerned with trying to see me she can't even pause to give me a smile...usually once she focuses on me, she will grin from ear to ear.



And finally, after seeing Michelle for these 4 days last weekend, we've noticed a change in Sadie's attitude. I don't know if it's part of the neurological maturity process, or if she's gained more confidence in herself, but she has learned to keep it together. Some might call this self-soothing, we call it not losing control. Sadie gets upset, frustrated, overstimulated, etc. and she cries...because this is how babies communicate. In the past, if whatever the issue is isn't resolved in a matter of seconds, it will turn into inconsolable screaming. Insert car screaming here. But just this week, we have noticed that Sadie can get over it on her own without losing control, and we love this new development...mostly because it may lead to the end of car screaming, but also because we are seeing our little helpless screamy baby turn into a child who is realizing that she can communicate with us.

Update on Movement Therapy

Sadie has been going to Movement Therapy every week through the month of December, and starting back up now that we're back from our holiday break. We really like Michelle.

Today Michelle's partner, Diane, was there also. Diane is a vision specialist and worked for The Foundation for Blind Children for many years. Diane has really noticed a change (for the better) in Sadie's vision and works a lot with her when she's there. However, today, Sadie was tired, I suspect her mouth hurt, and all this resulted in BIG grumpy pants!

We stood Sadie up for a while and worked with her vertical instead of horizontal, that seemed to make her happy for a little while. She even played with one of Michelle's fun toys that if you push buttons they make noise, play songs, and light up (I really want to get Sadie something like this).


Then we took a nap break. When Sadie woke up (after about 15 minutes) I showed Diane and Michelle our trick.

When Sadie first wakes up she will lay on her tummy and lift her head, turn it from side to side, look at stuff, even push with her arms, and sometimes roll herself onto her back when she's done. But we can ONLY do this when she first wakes up, so often this is what I do with her when I am making her some food (because she usually eats as soon as she wakes up too!). Both women were really impressed with this.

While we were there I asked if it's more beneficial for Sadie to come weekly like we have been, or to do an "intensive" session every couple of months. An intensive is like 2 appts a day for 4 or 5 days in a row. Michelle said now that she's seen both with another client, she sees MUCH more improvement in a shorter amount of time with he intensive schedule. So, we won't see Michelle until President's Day weekend. We will see her at 9am and 3pm Friday-Monday.

If you are interested in knowing more about Michelle and her business, you can visit her website here. Movement Lesson

UPDATE THE NEXT DAY: Last night I had a dream that Sadie started pushing herself into crawling position after seeing Michelle for an intensive. Maybe this dream is just an indication of what's in my heart.

Sadie's Acugraph

2 weeks ago Sadie saw an acupuncturist for the first time (don't worry, he didn't poke her!) to see if we could get the energy flowing through her body in balance. His name is Michael, and he is very nice. The first thing he did was draw up an acugraph on Sadie. To do this he had a special machine that measured her energy through its exit points in her nail beds, both hands and feet. He used this probe with like a cotton q-tip on the end of it. It was completely painless, but of course Sadie screamed the whole time! This was Sadie's first acugraph:

I know it's small, so I'll explain a little. Each energy line has a left and a right, those are the two lines you see for each one. The 12, in order, are lungs, pericardium (the muscles around your heart), heart, small intestine, triple energy (these are your head, chest, and gut), large intestine, spleen, liver, kidney, bladder, gall bladder, and stomach. According to this, she averages out at 164%, ideal is 100%, so her energy was pretty high across the board. The red ones show that the energy line running through her heart are both higher than her high average. The purple ones are split, meaning there is a large discrepancy between her right and left sides. You can see there are quite a few of these. The green are normal, meaning they aren't split and the both fall in her average range...however, they're still high.

We left with instructions on how to 1. lower her heart energy (which has nothing to do with the actual workings of her heart, by the way), 2. balance her right and left sides, and 3. lower her energy overall. And I faithfully rubbed and tapped all the appropriate spots...for 2 weeks. I should also note that this first appointment was the day before our first movement lesson (ABM therapy).

Yesterday, we visited Michael again. He did the same thing with the probe and the computer and stuff, and Sadie screamed through it again. But this time I was noticing the numbers were a lot lower. And a couple of times he re-measured one. Then when we were all through he told me he had to check his computer because those numbers seemed extremely low. But, it was working just fine. Here's what Sadie's second acugraph looked like:


Amazing, right? Michael said this is the most drastic change he's ever seen. You'll notice that everything is balanced right and left. And instead of the 164% she was at before, she's now at 53%! Now, says Michael, she's too low. These aren't lines of energy like we think of energy amping us up or being calm, these are flows indicating health and vitality. We still want Sadie to be closer to 100%. However, there's apparently no treatment for low levels, only high levels. So, Michael did some poking and used the percussor (vibrator) and tried to open up her main lines.

We go back next week for a third acugraph, then I imagine we'll be done with Michael. In the meantime, we have 3 more movement lessons this week (hopefully they'll be BOWEL movement lessons!)

Update on ABM Therapy

Sadie has been to ABM (movement) therapy 5 times now, and she is a completely different baby! I want to share how she's changed in just the last week and a half:

1. Her vision has improved. She can see. I mean, she could see before, but now she LOOKS at things. ANd her eyes focus together. And the fluttering eyelids is lessening. She fixes her attention on objects and really looks at them. Last night we visited Grandpa and he hasn't seen her since we started this therapy. He just kept saying, "look at her eyes! They look great! They look normal! You can tell she can see things better!"

2. No car screaming. Let me say that again in case it didn't sink in: NO. CAR. SCREAMING!!! Somehow, magically, Sadie is now perfectly okay with the car. All my dreams are coming true!!


3. Sadie sleeps at night...in her own bed. And when she doesn't sleep, I just don't care anymore, I'm not going to stay up with her. She's learning to put herself to sleep, so I just turn over and ignore her and she goes back to sleep. If she wants to nurse, she'll let me know. This has allowed me to get MORE than 5 hours of sleep a night and boy, do I feel good!! Oh, and this week she also took a 2 hour nap in her crib by herself.

4. She's becoming aware of her body. Sadie has started kicking her legs, pulling her knees to her chest when she's laying on her back. She's started using her hands more by batting at things. She's still pretty uncoordinated, but I see her trying to bring her hands to her mouth. Her hips are loose and range of motion is returning. She can also roll over. But she doesn't. But I've seen her do it more than once, so I know she can. I feel like once she really gets the hang of using those hands she'll have more motivation to roll over. Also, she can sit more independently for longer periods of time.


5. We're seeing more personality. Last night my brother was in Phoenix to do a show and I took Sadie to meet up with him before he had to go on stage. We were just sitting in the car, but she was smiling and happy and showing off for her uncle. Then we also met up with Grandpa and it was the same thing for him. She has turned into a happy, smiley baby instead of a screamy baby who needs to bounce and nurse all day.

All this after only 5 sessions!! We will have 3 or 4 more next week before we take a break and see what Sadie can do. All of the sudden crawling by Christmas doesn't seem too unreasonable of a goal!!

If you are interested in Movement Therapy for your sick or disabled child, yourself, or anybody you know (even those who are perfectly well!) you can visit Michelle's website here, or here. You can also find amazing videos of her work on youtube (you can even see Sadie!). And even if you don't live in Phoenix it's okay, she will FIND a way to help you!! I strongly encourage you to check her out!

ABM: a renewed hope

ABM is a new therapy we heard about from a lady at the Foundation for Blind Children (actually the mom of the little girl I wrote about yesterday). It stands for Anat Baniel Method (that is a picture of Anat Baniel to the left). I'm gonna post a bunch of videos, and I'm just warning you 1. they're long, and 2. you might need tissue (for happy tears of joy).

ABM is not just for special needs children, anybody can experience results through this kind of movement therapy. However, for our purposes we will focus on using it to help children...especially children with CP. ABM is based on the idea that simple pressure on the spine stimulates the nervous system allowing the brain to create new neural pathways. By increasing the child's awareness of his/her body, the idea is that the child becomes more mobile. It can also improve vision (if it's brain-related like Sadie's) and speech. Results from this approach to movement in children with delays/disabilities is dramatic and almost immediate.

ABM is learning-based, not medical-based, and because of what we know about the brain's plasticity and ability to recover and heal, the earlier one can start ABM, the better chance for full recovery of ability and normal development. This means that if we start Sadie now, she could very possibly be walking ON TIME. The reason I can say this with some confidence is that I've watched SO MANY of these videos and they are amazing.

But before you watch the videos, I want to share with you what Anat Baniel calls the 9 essentials that the brain requires in order to grow and develop new patterns and possibilities.

1. Movement with Attention: without movement we cannot feel alive, and movement with attention allows the brain to create new patterns so that a child can learn. Paying attention to your movements is powerful, even for adults. Think about if you've ever done yoga or Tai Chi, you are moving your body slowly and deliberately and it not only benfits you physically, but it's good for your brain.

2. Learning Switch: You want your learning switch to be on so that everything that you experience can be a learning experience for your brain to use and to help it grow. Turning on your learning switch allows you to become a real-life problem solver. In order to turn on this learning switch, it's important to step into each situation consciously expecting to learn something new.

3. Subtlety: Our job as we go through life is to become more and more refined and to be able to be more subtle with our movement and our skills. Creating more subtle pathways and connections in the brain allows us to be more complex with our skills. We want to help our brains grow subtlely and not with force so that we can get the most bang for our buck, so to speak.

4. Variation: Changing things just a little or finding new ways to do something causes the brain to flourish and spring to life. Make intentional mistakes when practicing, then go back and redo whatever it is correctly and you may find that your brain has really expanded and improved.

5. Slow: Slowing down helps us to feel and sense more of what's going on around us. This makes our lives richer. Doing everything on "auto-pilot" can cause us to forget that life is to be enjoyed, but slowing down and tuning into all our senses enriches our lives and allows us to really feel alive.

6. Enthusiasm: Enthusiasm is a skill, something you can learn to do intentionally, instead of it just being a reaction to an outside stimulus. Anything you bring enthusiasm to will grow and expand and improve. When you are enthusiastic about something someone has done, you may find that they will do it more. When you are internally enthusiastic you effect the environment around you, creating more energy and a more positive environment to be in. Make the small into great by being enthusiastic.

7. Flexible Goals: When you are flexible about your goals, you are able to be flexible about the opportunities you have to reach those goals. Being rigid about your goal and how to reach it actually lessens your chances of ever achieving it. The moment we make a new goal, we don't know how we're going to get there or if we ever will, we aren't even sure what it will look like when/if we do reach our goal. Heading roughly toward something at first, then narrowing your focus toward your goal the closer you get to it will help you be more successful.

8. Imagination and Dreams: Imagination is just as good as the real thing. Using your brain to imagine yourself doing something actually creates new patterns rather than just doing the same thing over and over and traveling along the same lines that were already there. Dreams are big ideas we form from within about our future or the future of our children. Dreams give us a direction for our lives.

9. Awareness: For humans to grow and thrive it's important for us to be aware and to continually be challenging ourselves to do things at higher and higher levels. Becoming more and more aware of ourselves and our environment is something we can develop regardless of our age or stature. Without awareness there can be no knowledge. Becoming aware makes one accurate, deliberate, and wise about other people and about oneself.

Now, check these out

Anat Baniel's video showing several children with CP (it's in 2 parts)
Part 1
Part 2

Isaac, who had meningitis as a baby and it caused hydrocephalus (water in the brain)
Isaac's video

Here's a 6 month old with some paralysis of the left side of her body
Hannah's video

This is Michelle, she is here in Phoenix (so cool that she has amazing videos on here!)
Anthony's video

Rolling over with Liam
Liam's video

This one might make you cry, I've watched it 3 times and cried everytime!
Cole's video

This is Aliyah, the little girl I told you about yesterday who fell in love with Brian
Aliyah's video

If you actually took the time and watched ALL these videos, you might also be convinced. Needless to say, I'm calling Monday.