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Cognition, Emotion and the Cerebellum

Cognition, Emotion and the Cerebellum Why would this be of interest to OTs and Speech Therapists? I have always believed that cognition and language are integral to rehabilitation. The thought purpose is critical in planning and organisation of movements. As a neuro physiotherapist I believe the use of language is critical whether the purpose is to motivate the person or to enable them to process and understand and move. The process of planning is affected after any neurological disorder. The patient can no longer think and plan as the part of the brain that does this is affected. It is […]

Visual Processing in Children with Neurological Disorder

Perceiving direction of self-motion is multi-sensory process that involves visual optic flow as well as vestibule sense. Vision provides extrinsic world based coordinate information and is used to plan spatial features of movements towards visual targets. Proprioception provides intrinsic information about limbs configuration and movements and predominates in transforming a spatial plan in to commands that results in muscle force and joint movements The importance of working with the visual processing in physiotherapy is that movements becomes more natural , the fear is reduced and this improves posture. In turn of course alignment of the body improves and the quality […]

Singing for Parkinsons

David G Smith an american singer and song writer, is supporting Parkinson Awareness Month with a song called Doesn’t Take Much Light. We have played the song a few time over at the Birkdale Centre and quite like it, the words themselves are very meaningful. David G Smith wrote the song based on a true story: This song is a true story about Ernest J Lutes who was a scoutmaster to my co-writer, Dean Madonia. Ernest J got to hear this song shortly before passing away from complications due to Parkinson’s Disease. For more about the story please listen to […]

Helping Toe Walkers

Helping Toe Walkers at Birkdale Pediatric and Neuro Clinic Do we simply do passive stretching to calf muscles when children walk on their toes? In our experience passive stretching does not work and there has been many papers written on the topic to support this. After many years we realised that children who are toe walkers often have difficulty in postural alignment of head and neck and trunk and pelvis. They stand with their weight forward on their toes and lose their balance if they have to look down. They also have poor co-contraction of hamstring and quadriceps muscles and […]