Hi Everyone,
As you know Corey fights going to her therapy sessions daily. I counter the argument with the analogy that everything we do in life is a form of therapy, including shopping!
Retail Therapy is our latest version of Cognitive therapy. She is getting quite good at using the laptop, so naturally we had to look at several of our favorite retail chains and their new spring arrivals. Corey has always had a great sense of style. She picked some beautiful new clothes and shoes to match…thank goodness she didn’t have my credit card.
Our retail therapy includes setting a fictitious budget. Corey finds a website, searches for a specific product (i.e. Sun dresses), uses the mouse-pad to scroll through the product selections, chooses a design, chooses the color and size, and then adds it to the virtual cart. If she’s within budget she “wins”…if she’s over budget, she selects the items that need to be removed to fall within her budget; including shipping charges! I doubt we’ve created a new form of therapy but this is working quite well to keep Corey engaged and is a great distraction. What 20 year old doesn’t like on-line shopping?
She had a good session with Elaine, OT and Natalie, PT today. We travel with her IPad and chose one of her favorite Rock stations during OT. I sit across from Corey and mimic her movements as Elaine sits beside her to assist her left arm movements. We each held a 2’ length of bubble wrap. Listening to Maroon 5 and Adele, we raised the bubble wrap above our heads swaying our arms side to side, up and down, and twisting at our waist. Try this at home; it’s quite a work out!! Popping the bubble wrap is not only fun, it also works on fine motor control and strengthens her hand muscles.
Corey is still having issues with her left leg. The left leg muscles have increased in tone which inhibits her use of the Lokomat. My left shoulder and arm is not healing as quickly as I’d like which doesn’t help our matte work. Natalie enrolled me in PT101 today. She taught me several new positional techniques that should help relieve the stress on my arm yet help Corey stretch her hip and leg muscles. After our matte work we used Bryn Mawr’s double platform walker.
The platform has two elevated arm rests with vertical handles. Corey grasps the handles like joy sticks and rests her forearms on the platforms; they help support her upper body. I stand behind her holding onto the walker at her hips. We step together in unison as I advance the walker and Corey focuses on balancing her upper body, stepping heal toe. When people watch us walk together they often comment that it looks like we’re dancing. We have been practicing our new dance moves using the walker for the last few weeks. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Today we finally received Natalie’s approval ~ we can take the walker home and start using it on our own. Tomorrow we will try our new matte exercises and continue to practice our dance moves.
I asked Corey if she wanted to write something for the page tonight. She looked at me with heavy eyelids and simply said, ‘Good Night’.
Happy dreams everyone, xoxo