Kevin's Healing Journey: Inpatient Rehab

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Inpatient Rehab

Occupational Therapy
Kevin has learned a lot of new skills and has gone back to some old skills like creeping. We've worked on some left hand activities but I am most impressed with his activities of daily living and self care. Now we have to carry that over to our home life.

Pool Therapy
Working on strengthening hips and core with water resistance...but it hardly feels like work for this fish...he's just happy to be in the water.

Physical Therapy
Kevin wowed me his last week of PT. They had him using a treadmill, elliptical, and stair climber...he wasn't happy (he kinda had this squawk sound he made...I think it's his scared sound) but he did it! He was even actively following and participating in hip exercises....I hope and pray he will cooperate and participate with me during his home program.

Speech and Language Pathology

I was so happy that Kevin got weekly SLP with his outpatient therapist. She's been working on higher expectations with Kevin. In the past, Kevin could say PLAY to hear some of his favorite music during a therapy session but now he has to say MUSIC. It took just one therapy session that he didn't say it for him to say MUSIC immediately at his next session. In fact the next day he kept saying it...LOL....so I had to reward him after PT with some music time.

New Friends

We met many new friends during our five weeks in the hospital. Kevin charmed a lot of our new friends by playing with their hair and giving them his winning smile.

Kevin did really well with the therapy dogs. He often requested DOG on his Talker during therapy sessions, they were a good motivator for him...just no touching because of allergies.

I love this cutie we met across the hall from us...she brightened my day to see her big smile. I hope our paths cross again.

Sleep

I've taken a lot of photos of Kevin sleeping during his recovery this summer. It is such a rare opportunity to watch him sleep and he slept a lot. Nearly every night reaching across me for his Talker to say TIRED SLEEP BED before 8pm. I finally had the nurse's trained to come in before lights out to their check on him. I also wanted to prove that he does get covered up every night but he pulls them up while sleeping.

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My Blog

This blog was created to keep our family and friends updated on Kevin's healing journey. It is also our hope that others may find this blog to give help and hope to other delayed kids.

About Kevin

They told us Kevin would never walk or talk. But with lots of prayers, hard work, and extra hands, he began walking when he was four years old and we continue to have faith and hope as we wait patiently for his speech to develop. Kevin is now eight years old. He is diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy due to a brain-injury he had before birth that was caused by a stroke. In 2006, before Kevin was 2 years old, we found Glenn Doman’s book "What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child" that had answers to help children with special needs and developmental delays. We began an individualized home treatment program for Kevin immediately and have been dedicated to our program ever since. We spent three years with the Doman family at The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP) and now we are with Matthew and Carol Newell at The Family Hope Center (FHC). Twice a year we return to Philadelphia where Kevin receives a neurological evaluation to determine the progress he has made in the last six months. Then they provide us with an individualized, program that puts me in charge to help Kevin develop and reach his fullest potential.

Do You Know a Delayed Child?

The best recommendation we can give to another parent with a special needs or developmentally delayed child (brain-injured, brain-damaged, mentally retarded, mentally deficient, cerebral-palsied, epileptic, autistic, athetoid, hyperactive, attention deficit disordered, developmentally delayed, or down's) is to read Glenn Doman's book What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child and/or Dr. Coralee Thompson and Dr. Philip Maffetone's book Healthy Brains, Healthy Children. By simply reading these books, you will gain valuable information to help your child which will begin to unlock the potential your child has. And best of all you will learn that there are other options to helping your child that you can do yourself. We would also highly recommend attending the parent course at FHC or IAHP. To read how our journey began and the successful progress Kevin has had refer to the January 2010 blog archive.