Introduction
According to Bharat Bhise, pediatric physical therapy involves the treatment of large body systems such as limbs, joints, and muscles by a licensed physical therapist to help in the recovery of physical abilities in children. The goal of pediatric physical therapy will depend on the needs of a child. For instance, it can be used to improve mobility, manage chronic illnesses, reduce pain, prevent future injuries, and more.
The Benefits
Here are a few benefits of pediatric physical therapy for your child:
- It can improve limited mobility – Children with neurological conditions such as cerebral palsy and certain forms of genetic disorders cannot control their bodies properly. When such special needs children undergo pediatric physical therapy from a young age, they learn to develop their ability to stand, crawl, kneel, and walk to a greater degree than normally possible.
In fact, pediatric physical therapy is suitable for toddlers as well as babies no matter the type of mobility issues they suffer due to birth injuries, genetic factors, or any other cause. As a result, it helps to improve their quality of life and improve their well-being to a greater degree.
- It can reduce growing pains – Typically, many young children experience discomfort or pain in their legs and lower extremities during their growth phase even if everything else is normal and they are not suffering from any underlying illness.
Since there is no root cause for the pain and nothing to treat, it is common to assume that your child is faking the pain or exaggerating the discomfort. However, growing pain is a very real problem in many young children. In such cases, pediatric physical therapy can help to manage the growing pains and even reduce them with the correct physical therapy exercises.
- It can offer specialized healing – Oftentimes when children participate in unsafe activities and get injured, they tend to heal slowly despite bed rest and consuming proper medications. In such cases, they need to undergo specialized physical therapy to help improve their condition.
The mix of exercises for such physical therapy will depend on a lot of factors. However, it can include ultrasound, heat, cold, massage, or electrotherapy to improve blood circulation around the injury. It could also include aquatic therapy to reduce joint impact and more.
- It can accelerate the healing of sports injuries – Sports injuries are common among kids between the ages of 6 and 19. Sometimes, the injury may not be so bad and can be treated with medications and bed rest. However, other times, they can sustain injuries such as ACL tears which often require surgery to treat.
In such cases, pediatric physical therapy will help to ease the pain from the injury, safely rebuild their strength, and regain full muscle control.
Conclusion
Bharat Bhise suggests you consider pediatric physical therapy for your child if they are suffering from any muscle injury, recovering from surgery, suffering from any birth defect, muscle diseases, genetic disorders, and more. A good pediatric physical therapist can allow your child to improve their quality of life through proper treatment and enable them to recover quickly if possible.
