Ideas for Homemade Arm Restrictor?

[mkeimm]

Hello All-

I am new to this site, however my husband has been a member since just days after of dd was born. Everyone on this board has been very helpful. Well, today I decided it was about time I got on here myself.

We have been doing restrictive OT on our dd for about a month now. We are up to 40 minutes per day which has been working out great until the last few days. Our dd has been wearing a removable velcro "cast" on her good arm. She has now mastered removing it and it is interfering big time with our OT. We have tried to put a long tube sock over it, but she ends up shaking the cast off her arm and it dangles in the sock. We tried just the sock but she is able to get some use of that hand.

Does anyone have any different ways to restrict her arm. Her therapist didn't have any different ideas. She had mentioned that there are different restraints used for adults but didn't know (and didn't check) if available for toddlers.

This has really helped her ROM and loosening her up, so any ideas would be great. Thanks.

[F-Litz]

Maia had a Blues Clues stuff doggy that she loved - it was her favorite pal. So I created this story line... when we got home from therapy, Blues was crying in her room...and I would call her up there and tell her that Blues was crying because he wanted to come with us to therapy....etc etc....
so we brought blue with us...and then Blue was crying again because he wasn't involved and couldn't see what was happening.... so she held Blues Clues in righty (uninjured arm) so that he could watch up close, what lefty (injured arm) was doing! Voila! "homemade arm restrictor"
Blues had to be involved A LOT!!! he was very nosey! and a dear dear friend

one day blues left arm button (he said different things) stopped working so maia said that Blues had a brachal plexus injury. When it was time for her 3rd surgery she brought blues with her -- but the doctor was unable to fix his "nerves" -- lefty remained unable to work. But Maia got Blues very involved in her therapy because of it. Precious memories.

[jmar]

WOW what fun maia must have had as a child.

[F-Litz]

I learned from all our great therapists how one can manipulate a child into doing something they don't want to do.... oh the stories I made up (oh the lying I did).

I'll never forget this one time I signed up with Dr. Pape for a program and I had to give her a very detailed tape of Maia doing a very detailed list of ranges of motion - it took 2 hours to video the pieces..... I wrote Maia a letter (in santa claus font) (and delivered it in advance to her therapists) and it said that she was chosen to make a video for Santa Claus for a video contest because she was really good at that and if Santa liked her video, she might win the grand prize of this set of dolls (she wanted) !! So in this video there's all this waving hi to Santa, etc. And a month later when she showed up for therapy, (had to make her wait a while so there would be suspense) there was this great big package from Santa with a letter saying that she had WON the contest!!! and how proud he was of her and more...

oh the things I did..... <hiding head in shame> <not really>

I have some great stories for my grandchildren when (hope to God) they come into our lives.
-francine

[anotherbpimom...]

Try wrapping the removable cast with ace wrap. Make sure it's not tight, but you could wrap part of it and secure it with the remaining ace wrap around the shoulder? Or pin/tape the ace wrap or just the (fabric?) cast to clothing?

It's challenging, but does eventually come to an end and it does help a lot. Good luck to you!

[BPI mom]

You could try an oversized sleeper with the sleeve sewn shut and/or with the arm sewn to the side of the sleeper. If he can still figure out how to unzip, you can get a similar design one piece jumpsuit and snap, zip, or button it backwards. Let me know how it works.

Best of luck.