I am sure; you will easily understand what you must never do to your child if you understand this second part.
Let us understand Brain; it is one organ that needs repetition and number of hours of channelizing, re-directing, and re-organizing through exercises unlike any other organ of the body i.e. lungs or heart or kidney, etc. for which drugs and rest is most important.
Brain is not only an organ of action-reaction but is ‘the organ that finds solution’ and ‘it predicts OR anticipates threat to safety of Centre Of Mass (COM) and also acts to prioritize safety’ by bringing our COM back within support surface without falling.
It is extremely important to understand how to handle brain in order that it does not react in a way that is detrimental to the growth and development of child.
At this juncture, if I am in your shoes as a parent, I will ask a question; ‘what is the difference between my child and any other child?’
Let me explain; your child is unable to connect to the gravity automatically and on time, something we all have done automatically without our knowledge when we were babies and growing up.
Now you will ask, what do I mean by connecting to the gravity?
It is very simple. When you get connected to the gravity, you are able to take it for granted. You know it exists but you do not need to think about it and You are able to automatically control and restore Centre of Mass (COM) of your body to safety, without letting gravity to topple you.
COM is not an anatomical structure, it is invisible and we take its safety for granted because control on COM is automatic.
Our growing brain plays a huge role in connecting our body and itself to the gravity in early years of our life following our birth for development of spatiotemporally effective and automatic control on COM.
Connecting to gravity is what all of us have done constantly as babies, as infant, as child, and as an adult.
We are born full term but yet we are unable to control our COM right after birth like an elephant baby, zebra or Giraffe who can control their COM automatically shortly after birth.
Normal child post birth starts his journey of global development of brain and body and all major physiological systems of the body as he begins to self-control global COM of his body by using limbs and trunk to be able to sit, Crawl, stand and walk to explore the world and learn from the world.
Your child with brain lesion and weak muscles is unable to handle gravity to control and restore COM to safety on time using his Musculo-skeletal System (MSS). This results into delayed milestone.
MSS is the mechanical interface between the organism and environment; ‘the outside world’. Mechanical properties of muscle, connective tissue and fascia interact with the physics of the outside world with commands from neural system. Brain is a controller and body gets controlled by brain in an external environment of gravity.
Two things can happen to your child when he gets lesion in the brain. First, ‘Negative contribution’ of automatic postural control can get him into a trap of vicious circle of inability to control COM + weakness of MSS + contracture and stiffness + delayed milestone + fear of falling + constant ongoing monotonous sensory inflow from periphery about being passive + continued spinal movements etc.
When your child does not creep, crawl, stand and walk his major physiological systems of the body like respiratory, brain cardiac, circulatory, digestive excretory, musculoskeletal, skin, etc. do not get well integrated functionally with one another. This makes your child fall ill frequently with cough, cold, fever, rigors etc. with poor general condition. Functional integration of major physiological systems is critical for homeostasis.
OR second thing that is possible for the child is he can also become capable of controlling his own COM and cope with gravity like anyone else if, you parents learn to exploit beautiful period of growth of brain with highest plasticity, adaptability post birth when brain cells are rapidly dividing, connecting, eliminating or pruning.
You can easily exploit gravity to make his weak body capable to generate muscular forces despite brain lesion.
Gravity is available to all of us for free. Nature does not discriminate between rich and poor or where you live, in developed part of the world or developing part.
Besides free gravity, body and brain is also free gift of nature it does not cost so……………..what are you waiting for? Believe in your capacity, your ability and in your child, you can certainly succeed to connect your child to gravity so that he stands up, walks by himself and develops speech, perceptual, cognitive abilities to cope with real time life.
Now, I think it is time I talk about how to do it all with VASA CONCEPT but I also think that it is important for me to tell you why VASA CONCEPT emphasizes on empowering parents. If, parents take up the role of executing the exercise plan designed periodically for you by your therapist you will not need to spend money and time on travel and can work with your child for long hours each day in the safe environment of home. This will also reduce burden on multidisciplinary Neuro-rehabilitation teams who have long list of patients waiting for appointments.
You can dedicate quality time with love, care and safety to help brain to re-reorganize, connect, reconnect, channelize, for spatio-temporally effective postural motor, speech, perceptual and cognitive development within the comfort of your home wherever in the world you live.
When your child is with you he will receive everything done with him as play and fun and not as TREATMENT OR EXERCISE, as child does not understand difference between playing and exercising. For the child everything with Mama-Papa is play and love.
Chemistry of your child’s brain when working with parents will also be more receptive.
You will also get more opportunity to spend time with goal of developing his brain that will help child to develop bond with you. Strong bond helps to get things done with the child without his resistance.
If you are convinced that yes, your home is the best place to work with the child and you can learn to help your child then I move on to more serious subject about brain, muscle weakness, gravity and movement.
Child with brain lesion has paresis in his muscles that makes muscles forceless and child has difficulty controlling his head neck in space. This becomes first critical constraint for the child to connect to the gravity.
Poor control on head neck makes it difficult for the child to exploit major sensory organs like eyes, ears, nose, vestibule in the middle ear that could send huge amount of sensory inflow for motor outflow from the brain that helps hold head neck against the toppling force of gravity and locate an object in space, learn about environment and above all begin to get different postural centers its
connectivity with each other and with cortex to get the ball rolling to be completely connected with gravity with ability to sit, stand and walk independently within 12 to 15 months post birth.
Poor control on head neck + weak muscles of mouth, poor tongue movement from stiffness or weakness makes it difficult for the child to gulp the saliva and drooling becomes inevitable.
Drying the mouth with drugs or surgical removal of salivary glands is not the solution as saliva is most important digestive enzyme with strong immune power in the mouth that fights external infections for teeth to remain healthy and free from infections and does not allow infection to enter the GI tract or Respiratory tract and helps food intake to be better digested with digestive enzymes.
Please see the videos to learn how you can help the head neck control to develop with different exercises.
Poor head neck control also makes it difficult for the child to focus on the stationary / moving object. This deprives extra ocular muscles of both eyes from
developing coordination with one another. This makes eye balls to get squint. You can help remove squint without surgical need if you can exercise child for head neck control so that he begins to get chance to focus on moving objects and give opportunity to extra ocular muscles to get strength and coordination.
Inability to sit up by self and inability to sustain to sit when made to sit makes it difficult for torso muscles and vertebral column to develop to be able to sustain the weight of head neck and arms.
Poor head neck control with poor trunk control and imbalance between two sides of weak trunk muscles can result into kyphosis and scoliosis of back with ‘C’ curve.
If Para-spinal muscles are not worked upon, these curves become deformities with passage of time and growing age. See the films to get complete control on Para-spinal muscles that keep vertebral column well aligned removing the need for scalpel and knife to fix steel rod to attempt to straighten the spine.
You must have also experienced that your baby on his first or second birthday was not standing or walking but
was beautiful and flexible. He was not stiff like a log as you might be experiencing now that your child is older and is forced to stand, sit and walk with passive support and aids. You must be wondering why despite regular treatment your child is turning stiff. You may think that it is not only my child but many other you meet in therapy Centre are also stiff that means it might be part and parcel of the condition.
You are right child was not as stiff like log when he was younger but developed stiffness with passage of time.
Let me explain why your child turns into a log like structure with passage of time. Initially when his body is weak, muscles are paretic, he has his limbs and trunk not under control rather it has increased degrees of freedom at joint segments that puts safety of COM at threat. Safety from falling is a priority for all of us and for all living beings. Threat to safety raises the need for better anchoring of these anatomically connected head neck arms, legs to pelvis and spine. Self-organizing brain triggers morphological changes in connective tissue that could functionally bind anatomical structures together as one unit to reduce threat to safety from multilinked body
and to enable the entire body to function as one integrated whole.
These changes triggered by brain are difficult to reverse as brain is more powerful than any external physical power of man unless therapy is designed to work in tandem with brain’s priority.
Vasa Concept is to help self-organized brain to Re-reorganize for postural motor output that is capable of controlling and restoring COM to safety automatically without thinking and planning.