Home of the Four Trans

Brothers geared up and ready for a race!

Justin voluntarily used his right arm and hand, today. He actually understood and was aware of his right arm/hand.

Up until today, Justin refused to use his right hand/arm to do anything, and would often pull it back into a tight L position, bending at the elbows, and his hand would be in drop down position from the wrist or curled into a tight fist . His therapists have told me that while he’s working hard on an activity, he will retreat to these positions because he has less control of the right side which prevents him from relaxing it.

We’ve been working on bilateral play (using two hands to do things), weight bearing, deep massaging, sensory activities, and most recently the brushing technique to help him become more aware of his right arm/hand so that he would know that it exists so that he can use it.

The stroke he had back in January of 2008 damaged an area of the brain that controls his right arm/hand and leg/foot (possibly language/speech, also). It is our hope that, through occupational and physical therapy, he will be able to ‘re-wire’ his brain, and essentially build new synapses or connections to replace those that have been damaged.

The progress has been slow. It has now been 1 year and 2 months since he had experienced the stroke, and there is still little function or use of that right side. He tended to treat the arm like it doesn’t exist. If he did notice it, it was treated like a completely separate object from his body.

In the past two months, Justin has learned to combat crawl using both arms; He’ll appropriately swing his right arm forward to move forward. But, his hand continues to be neglected as he leaves it bent, and will not bear weight through his hands. He’s also learned to bring his hands to mid-line, clap with open left hand hitting fisted right, and sign ‘more’.

However, whenever I ask him to use his right hand/arm to perform an activity, he will often tighten that right side up. He would sometimes refuse, pulling that arm away. Whenever he does an activity on his own, he will ignore the right, and find other ways to perform the activity with his remaining limbs (left hand/arm, right and left leg/foot). He’s actually learned to perform some activities with just his left hand and left foot, like pressing buttons with his left hand, and on the same toy, spin an object with his right left foot. His therapists have commented on how smart he is for being able to compensate for what he doesn’t know he has.

Well, given our history with him, can you imagine the glee that filled my stomach when Justin actually repeatedly followed my direction to place his right hand on the steering wheel of his car?

I would place his right hand on the steering wheel, and tell him, “The right hand has to help you drive the car.” When he dropped that arm down, I would stop the car, and repeat this action. I’ve tried this technique over and over, again, and his arm/hand would just tighten into an L position so much that I could not even stretch his arm to reach the steering wheel.

Today, his right arm and hand were looser than usual, enabling me to better pull his arm to reach, and open his fingers to place it around the wheel. After two tries, whenever I reminded him where his arm/hand should be, he actually started placing his hand/arm in the correct position when it fell off (his grasp is still not very strong)…on his own! There were several times when I didn’t even have to remind him, and he did it. So very exciting.

He did so well that I took him out for a car ride two times, today, already. The second time around, he was also able to follow direction.

There is no way to prove this, but I must attribute some of this success to the brushing technique. We started this on Wednesday, and already, I see the difference in the tone and awareness of his right arm/hand. With the brushing technique, I also perform joint compressions immediately after, with deep massaging to finish it off.

He hasn’t done much weight bearing through his arms this week, and missed two of three days of therapy because he was sick. Prior to last week, he did not have therapy for 3 weeks, and did minimal weight bearing at home (again, sick Nathan and Justin). This is not to say that I do not think that the therapy sessions have not contributed to his awareness, but that I think the brushing technique has brought it to another level.

Another exciting update: Yesterday, Justin got up by himself (unassisted), repeatedly, from supine (on back) to sitting. He was able to do the same on his right several times!

His most recent developments encouraged me to start a journal that I wish I had thought of doing before. I’ve been taking notes on techniques, and journaling on his most major developments, but, I haven’t dedicated a journal to therapy. My hope is by doing so I will better communicate with his therapists about his developments, and allow me to organize my observations and his progress.

Yay, Justin!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Baby Book, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.