PT/OT therapy question...

[admin]

We are in our early intervention program Birth2Three right now. Mariella has been getting PT once a week and OT once a month. Now, our OT is out on maternity leave (I was thinking about switching her anyway) and our current PT said we will just do PT once a week for now and that we dont need OT. She said she could do all the same things as for what Ella needs right now. Ella is six months at the end of this month.
Here are my questions:
Should I still be having an OT come out, and how many times? Should PT only be 1x a week and how long should the session be? Any other therapy input besides the questions I asked will be great too.
Thanks for any help.
Krista

[Tessie258]

I think it's important to get in the habit of doing what the therapists do everyday at home by yourself. The reason is because it will enforce a good habit and also you never know when they will say you're on your own...That has happened to us more than once. Unfortunately since therapy is a life long process you will be your childs greatest therapist. I always take notes during therapy then hang them somewhere in the house where I will remember to do the exercises. I always am looking for new therapy toys...I noticed Walmart has a big red rubber ball right now that would be great for sitting on and for doing the belly rolling on. When Jame was little we had a blow up tube(with bells inside) that we put him over and put toys on the other side for reaching...kind of like the old wheel barrow races except the tube is under the tummy. I will see if I can find a picture to e-mail you. We also used an adult pillow( I can't remember what they're called) for the neck. It has a hump in it. Anyway we put that under the baby's arm pits and used it for weight bearing.
Good luck and just do your best to keep her active!
T.

[Cara]

Try to get a new OT. We have been going through problems with our First Steps program getting a PT. Keep after them. No offense to the post above intended, but even if you are doing therapy everyday with your child (and you better be I am guessing you are not a trained therapist, neither am I. It is important to keep the therapist coming out so you know how to change your home program as the child developes. We have been doing OT twice a week since Rosalynn was about 3 mo. After she started making progress after surgery, we discussed cutting back, but then lost our PT so the OT has been also doing more PT type activities. Good Luck!

[Tessie258]

That's allright Cara I'm not offended at all...I am just a little bit hardened though because we've been dropped from the system a lot over the past 12 years...It seems when the child starts to plateau then they disqualify you.

I think you have to learn to be a therapist for your child...learn as much as you can because ultimately you are the one who will give a darn about your child. Maybe other's experiences will be different from ours but I have heard from others with older children that this does happen.

[TNT1999]

Hi, Krista. I think you should still have an OT come out for a couple reasons. Firstly, the PT probably could do basically whatever the OT does esp. on a baby who's only 6 months (I think the OT becomes more specialized the older the baby / child gets). However, if you accept not having OT, then you're going to have a reduction in therapy services for one thing b/c I assume the PT would still come the same frequency (weekly) and not more often. Plus, you'd be cutting out a specific type of therapy that you were previously approved for. So, you might be setting yourself up for having to get approved for OT all over again after the therapist's leave. Plus, who really knows how long the maternity leave might be. She might decide to extend her leave or not return at all. Then, what? Another thing is that if you planned on changing OTs, then this would give you an "easy" opportunity to try out another OT and see how you like him/her. Then, if you like the new one, you could probably pretty easily stay with the new OT.

We had an EI plan of PT 1x/wk and OT 2x/month. Then, a year ago we reversed it to OT 1x/wk and PT 2x/month. I don't think you would ever really need EI PT or OT more than once per week parly b/c one of the main jobs of an EI therapist is to show you things to do yourself. That's how it was communicated to me. You might want to consider trying to increase the OT at some point though, perhaps to 2x/month and see what they say. Nicole needs more OT b/c she has such little hand function, so you need to assess your own situation. Perhaps Ella might need more PT due to the helmet though, so see how that goes.

I don't know if there are state regulations, but our therapy visits have been 1 hour. I think that's supposed to include the notes that they write up. However, often Nicole's therapists work with her for an hour and then write the notes after that. It varies. During evalutions, her PT has been here up to 1 1/2 hours+.

I hope this helps. If you find problems with the group in general, you can change to a different therapy center within Birth to Three. Don't forget, I can also recommend to you the group we had if they service your town too. Nicole had an excellent PT / Svc Coordinator who always went above and beyond her job duties and really loved Nicole. I'm sad to leave them. Can you tell??!! I hope this helps. Call me if you want.

-Tina )