United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

a shower door!!

it's two years now that we've been working with our shower door and I have to tell you that out of all the things we bought and work with - this shower door (as old as it is) has done SO MUCH for Maia's arm!!

we started out early on by using shaving cream on it - this is how maia learned all her shapes, letters and numbers

Then we got a swimmy Barney and I shoved him in the inside towel holder bar so that he was hanging (soaked with water) and I made a funny out of it - told Maia that Barney had pee pees and she had to squeeze them out (with both hands of course) - THIS still provides her with great joy and laughter. When she was younger - she really had to reach high to do this - now it's easier but she still has to squeeze him hard to get the water out.

We do CRAB races. ... we pretend that our lefties are crabs and we race up the shower door and the person who gets the highest wins - of course she always wins.
She really pushes her body into the shower door so she gets a good stretch that way. We also do spider races.

We do door drummies with rubber things.

We put all kinds of stickums on it.

We do finger plays behind it.

We scrub it down with a brush to clean it.

We finger paint it.

Leftie showers it clean.

Anyway....just wanted to share that with y'all.
-francine

Isn't it great how every item in the house becomes a therapy issue. I do some of the very same things with my son and it is amazing the reaches he gets.

its the little everyday things
The car seat was a big one for a long time, climbing in then climbing out - I used to pull over when he was climbing out of it, just to let him finnish because it was so therapetic for him to do- ( I shortly lost my amusement in that but you get the pic)recently it has become the oak tree inthe back yard, for the longest time it was the Publix shopping cart,
There are things like your shower door that you just want to shout out about because its like the biggest therapy tool in your child's life!!!! I know what you mean!

It was washing windows with Gavin, he would LOVE to get his hands on the water in the bucket and help wash the windows on the house.
he's 11 now and tells me " I'm not falling for that old trick Mum, do your own chores" LOL
Make the most of these days Mum's, cause when they get older, it's REALLY hard to drag them way from playing on the computer/console/playstation etc. to do ANYTHING!

I think that is great how you all make ur houses in to big therapy huts!
One thing my mum told me she done with me was...took my left(good)hand and held it close to my body as if she was huggin me and put a cassette holder(it holds many cassettes) and gave me a whole load of cassettes and i had to slot all the cassettes into the cassette slots with my effected arm and it got me to use my arm precisely...i think thats a good idea.
Another was with those REALLY big lego block you get...is it ludo or sumthin? i dunno. But she held my left arm again and i had to keep stretchin to get a new block and put it on the tower and as it got higher i would have to stretch further. Its funny how parents think of these little things to help their little ppl. I also remember having to lift weights(lightones) to build up the strength and i used to cry doin it! Defo play with ur kids for therapy!!!

Michelle x

We do not have a shower door but many of the things suggested can be done on the shower enclosure of the bath tub. Also if you have a fabric shower curtain and liner - sew or fuse pockets onto the fabric shower curtain and place tub toys in the pockets that kids can reach to get...