Six basic movements for rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy

  The goal of rehabilitation for children with cerebral palsy is to enable the child to learn and master basic life skills so that he or she can lead a normal life in the future. However, at present, many medical and rehabilitation institutions for children with cerebral palsy mainly focus on medication and physical therapy. Six basic movement patterns based on the theory of guided education can help children with cerebral palsy recover as soon as possible.  1. Toward the midline. Training toward the midline is very important for children with hand-to-foot cerebral palsy. Each person’s two hands must cross the midline in front of the body in order to complete the cooperation of both hands, and both eyes must look straight ahead in order to achieve hand-eye coordination, so that they can focus on observing external things and carry out normal social interaction.  2. Grasping and releasing the hands. Children with cerebral palsy have difficulty in performing many daily actions because they cannot control their hands at will. It is important to train the fingers of children with cerebral palsy to grasp and release in a timely and accurate manner.  Many children with cerebral palsy cannot reach for things because their elbows cannot be straightened, they cannot adjust their body balance, and they cannot protect themselves when they fall or are attacked by external forces. Therefore, elbow straightening training should be carried out.  4.Hip joint activities. Hip joint extension and flexion, rotation and abduction and adduction activities play an important role in the child’s functional activities such as turning over, climbing, sitting, walking and going up and down stairs, etc. Poor active movement of the hip joint is bound to affect the development of the child’s overall motor function.  5. The ability to establish fixation. Children with cerebral palsy are often unable to perform single limb random movements due to brain damage, and some whole body and overall movement patterns appear, which are typical of postural abnormalities and compensatory movements in children with cerebral palsy. In order to solve these problems, the child must first learn to fix and control the body, for example, before reaching for something with the right hand, let the left hand grab a fixed object around to keep the body stable; then, for example, when sitting on a small stool and turning around, learn to move the left and right feet alternately, etc.  6, center of gravity shift, each person’s control of their own center of gravity can reflect to a certain extent the individual’s motor ability, especially in different positions of transition and climbing, walking, bending down to pick up things, up and down stairs and other dynamic activities, the center of gravity to maintain their own balance and the completion of the action is more important. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the center of gravity transfer training for children with cerebral palsy in different positions.