Sarthak was born on 27 October 1998. He is a full term normal delivery baby. My child had all appropriate milestones achieved except that he was suffering from ventricular septal defect (a heart condition) for which he was operated on 05/07/2000. The surgery (VSD closure with pulmonary volvotomy) led to complications in my child resulting into hypoxic ischemic insult to the brain along with significant cerebral and cerebellar atrophy. This led to loss of vision, audibility, speech, sitting, standing etc. The doctors declared that the injury is fatal and cannot be cured by any surgery or medicine. We were told to pray and start rehabilitation programs.

We tried to help Sarthak with many different kind of therapies. Here are some of the treatments that we made him undergo:

We started giving him acupressure with machine and to our surprise he uttered word “baba” after 20 days and then slowly he started talking.
Then we gave him Electrocrystal therapy on daily basis for one month.
He consumed ayurvedic syrup “Ojaswin” for six months.
We continued his physiotherapy under eight different physiotherapists at different times.
My wife took great efforts in getting done sitting exercises and one fine day, he could sit.
As per physiotherapists, we used splints, calipers etc and tried in all possible ways to seek guidance for therapy.
Nothing really seemed to be working on our child’s spasticity as such; it went on worsening with his age. We learnt from our experiences that still there are limitation in this field of physiotherapy for expert opinions and guidance. Everybody keeps trying but nobody gives any result as such, while the child continues to keep growing with age making it difficult for the parents to manage the child with each passing day. Physiotherapists take 45 minutes to 1 hour session; out of that hardly 20-25 minutes session is when child is cooperating. Most therapies are simply traditional and monotonous stretching and strengthening of the muscles. I am very sorry to say that this has become a commercial field right from ortho equipments to physiotherapy to schoolings to medicines….and unfortunately there is no alternative left with the parents but to pass time trying different ortho equipments and simply spending hours together outside the cabins of all the renowned doctors, therapists from whom we expect to bring changes in our child without much gain not to mention the huge monetary losses.

In doing this, like all other parents we wasted our so many most critical years at early stage after injury when right guidance, right therapies play a great role.

Suddenly one day, we came across one article in Loksatta “Paris Sparsha” means ‘golden touch’ and we got very much impatient to contact Dr. Rajul Vasa by simply reading the article. We thought somebody in the form of God has come to our rescue who will let us free from this directionless and commercial vicious cycle in the market. After meeting Dr. Rajul Vasa, we really felt happy, safe, and in the right hands.

Therapy under Dr. Rajul Vasa:
We brought Sarthak to Dr. Vasa at the age of 14. We were told by many doctors that it is difficult to reduce contractures of your child with passive stretching in physiotherapy; you will need surgical stretching. We were afraid of any surgery as our 2-year-old Sarthak had suffered brain injury during the surgery. When we brought Sarthak to Dr. Vasa we were surprised to see no negative reaction of any verbal or nonverbal form from Dr. Vasa. I particularly wish to mention here that whenever we take our child to the doctors and therapists, they put the parents in further depression suggesting us to accept the disability of our child because I suppose they have no solution to our child’s problems. They only tell us to carry on with the treatment so that the child does not deteriorate further but we actually have been witnessing that despite regular treatments Sarthak continued to deteriorate with development of contractures and stiffness and tightness. He became more and more dependent from all the stiffness.

At the center, the most interesting thing is that we are told to interact with one another. This helps us to share our experiences and help and educate each other. It indicates very much transparency. No fee is charged and on the contrary care is taken to utilize time to the fullest extent under keen observation and supervision. The video shooting of day to day home exercises is asked on weekly basis to review progress and useful instructions are given in next session to correct exercise if required. The spirit and enthusiasm seen in Dr. Rajul Vasa is very much commendable. No doctor ever thinks and plans treatment according to the need of a particular child and that to closely watching home video of exercises on Friday / Saturday before seeing the child on Sunday!! This is Dr. Vasa.

Sarthak before joining Dr. Vasa:
He used to wear splints in both the legs.
His right leg was very much stiff. Both hips and knees had flexion contracture with scoliotic spine and tilted pelvis.
He could sit but had hunched back and could not stand and walk.
He was not doing much activity at home.
We were making him walk without any other exercises to prepare for walking.
Positive Results with Vasa Concept:
We were asked in the very first session to stop using splints and to make him walk with splints and two people dragging him almost. Honestly, we were hesitant to immediately stop making him walk or stop wearing splints, but when we felt after two sessions that exercises told by Dr. Vasa are giving results then we totally discontinued use of splints and started using wheelchair.
There was lot of stiffness in his right leg. But because of exercises like cobra, jumping on trampoline and balancing on ball, his stiffness has reduced.
Other exercises like hand banging on ball, squat walking, sand exercise are really working on full body development, muscle building etc.
Very important thing is that we are motivated by Dr. Vasa’s concept of working with child’s brain and body. We have complete faith in Dr. Vasa as we have experienced the result and we have seen the results in other children with our eyes. So, with full confidence, we are putting all our efforts to practice the exercises given by Dr. Vasa.
Dr. Vasa gives more stress on home activities for brain development and we have started working on it. Sarthak is also enjoying it.
We were making Sarthak practice walking as told by our previous therapists, but we discontinued it after joining Dr. Vasa’s therapy as we understood importance of other pre-walking exercises first. Besides, we were noticing increasing stiffness in Sarthak with walking.
Dr. Vasa educates all parents from time to time and explains the importance of exercises. This also boosts our confidence level and gives us positive energy to work more and more on our child.
Now within 6 months of therapy with Dr. Vasa, the stiffness in his body has reduced to a greater extent, his arm and thigh muscles have developed, shoulder has broadened, his finger gripping has improved, and hands have become strong and he can lift and play with various objects around. He can now open the lid of a bottle, open the water tap in the bathroom, which he could never do previously. He can sit better now with his trunk straight; he doesn’t sit anymore with a scoliotic C-curve of spine. He does sit-to-stand from chair, jumping on trampoline very well. Previously there was scissoring of leg when we made him stand which has reduced now; his adductor tightness has reduced a great deal. There are improvements in intellectual level also. His knees look aligned, feet are no more looking flat and crooked. His body is becoming more muscular. Heel tightness has reduced. Now his foot is flat on the floor when he is standing; no more standing and walking on toes. We parents feel very proud that we could bring so many changes in our child under Dr. Vasa’s guidance. We parents are ready to do any amount of hard work provided we get results. We are very thankful to Dr. Rajul Vasa for bringing so many changes in my child within such short time.