There was another ruling yesterday that Autism is not caused by vaccines. Now what - people are coming out saying that parents should not focus their attention on this anymore and move on. What is going on? I can't be the only person with proof that Graham did get the HIB vaccine. Got sick immediately and it took three years for Graham to be diagnosed with HIB.
This is why we should all be getting mad. Let's use Graham as an example. Graham has a primary insurance and Long Term Care - which is Arizona's Medicaid program. Graham has had over 15 surgeries - let's just say that's 5K per surgery. He's spent 40 days in the hospital. Let's just say that's another 5K per day. He's had Early Intervention, four years plus of speech, feeding, physical and occupational therapy, Preschool at Foundation for the Blind, Preschool to 1st grade with services. Graham has no immune system. He got IVIg for two and a half years = that's $1500 every three weeks - now he gets Subcu Fusion - that's $850 per week. He's been to Neuro, Gastro, Genetics, ENT, Cardio, Optho, etc. One year I wrote off 11,700 medical miles that I traveled for services.
This is one child who is 7 and will need services for years to come. What's going on?
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Communication of the Body
There are three types of way your body has communication. What comes out of our mouths. The way we carry our body - or what many call body language. The way our skeletal system communicates.
With my work, I have the privilege to communicate with a person's skeletal system. I have learned an am practicing the Anat Baniel Method but the sensitivity that I have through my hands increases with every lesson. Being able to touch a person's ankle and sense different points through their body that needs more information for their brain to connect the movement. I think about this a lot and I'm trying to put it into words.
I can look at a person and see what they would see in the mirror. I can look at a person and see their muscles and the way they attach to the bones. I can look at a person and see their skeletal system moving a breathing in space. The curiosity to see how my input can change their nervous system and increase the dynamics.
If a person has had an insult to their system. It could be that they missed the bottom stair and threw their back out - to others it takes a car accident or years of abuse. They come into my clinic to learn how they can get back to where they were. "I could play golf six months ago and I miss it."
With Autism and childhood delays, a child doesn't have a judgement. That's the beauty of working with them. They use the input that they are receiving at a lesson and use it immediately. Adding to the complexity of information and variation that their brains has to use at their leisure. For example, a child with autism hasn't developed a refined, organized way of how they relate in space. This is obvious with rocking or stimming. Less obvious with lack of awareness with toys or people.
Letting a child play with the input to the base of the spine in relation to the pelvis. The brain is the ultimate gyro. If we develop the brain mapping you could suspend a human from a rope and they could move around upright as well as upside down and sideways. The awe that we have watching Cirque performers float and defy gravity. The input that is needed to have that same affect on a young child before there system continues to develop without the awareness to space.
When I sit here and type, if I were to be very conscious - I type through the clutter in front and around me. I know where the lamp is, the shelves, hockey table, printer, legos, bakugan, etc. I don't have to be in the now with all of this information. In fact, if I were, I would become over-whelmed very easily. If my son were to come into the room and ask for one of these objects, then I could adjust my body and get the item for him.
With Autism, the brain is not thinking in that mode. Why? For many, a child doesn't have a clear enough idea of who they are. That this is their hand holding the train. That their elbows relation to the shoulder assists the train to move. It's why their language fails them. Until they know that it is their elbow how does their brain go to "Mine!" as a healthy two year old lets you know.
Having a sensitive touch that helps let their brain know that this is them and watching language appear, walking change, being silly letting laughter in. It's nice to watch. Always with the curiosity of looking for ways to improve and stimulate the language of their skeletal system. When that increases - the other two system upgrade immediately.
With my work, I have the privilege to communicate with a person's skeletal system. I have learned an am practicing the Anat Baniel Method but the sensitivity that I have through my hands increases with every lesson. Being able to touch a person's ankle and sense different points through their body that needs more information for their brain to connect the movement. I think about this a lot and I'm trying to put it into words.
I can look at a person and see what they would see in the mirror. I can look at a person and see their muscles and the way they attach to the bones. I can look at a person and see their skeletal system moving a breathing in space. The curiosity to see how my input can change their nervous system and increase the dynamics.
If a person has had an insult to their system. It could be that they missed the bottom stair and threw their back out - to others it takes a car accident or years of abuse. They come into my clinic to learn how they can get back to where they were. "I could play golf six months ago and I miss it."
With Autism and childhood delays, a child doesn't have a judgement. That's the beauty of working with them. They use the input that they are receiving at a lesson and use it immediately. Adding to the complexity of information and variation that their brains has to use at their leisure. For example, a child with autism hasn't developed a refined, organized way of how they relate in space. This is obvious with rocking or stimming. Less obvious with lack of awareness with toys or people.
Letting a child play with the input to the base of the spine in relation to the pelvis. The brain is the ultimate gyro. If we develop the brain mapping you could suspend a human from a rope and they could move around upright as well as upside down and sideways. The awe that we have watching Cirque performers float and defy gravity. The input that is needed to have that same affect on a young child before there system continues to develop without the awareness to space.
When I sit here and type, if I were to be very conscious - I type through the clutter in front and around me. I know where the lamp is, the shelves, hockey table, printer, legos, bakugan, etc. I don't have to be in the now with all of this information. In fact, if I were, I would become over-whelmed very easily. If my son were to come into the room and ask for one of these objects, then I could adjust my body and get the item for him.
With Autism, the brain is not thinking in that mode. Why? For many, a child doesn't have a clear enough idea of who they are. That this is their hand holding the train. That their elbows relation to the shoulder assists the train to move. It's why their language fails them. Until they know that it is their elbow how does their brain go to "Mine!" as a healthy two year old lets you know.
Having a sensitive touch that helps let their brain know that this is them and watching language appear, walking change, being silly letting laughter in. It's nice to watch. Always with the curiosity of looking for ways to improve and stimulate the language of their skeletal system. When that increases - the other two system upgrade immediately.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Movement Lesson and Spinal Cord Injury
I just started working with a Alex. He's has a spinal cord injury (it's not complete) that's three years old. He's totaled sucked me into coming to his house - twice a week. We had his first lesson in my office @ three weeks ago. One lesson at his house last week. As of today, we are doing two lessons a week for the month of March to see where all of this goes.
I don't know his official diagnosis and I don't really care. The difference between what I do and everyone else is that my one and only job for Alex or anyone else that I work with is what can I do to make your life better. If I looked at anyone as a diagnosis first then I'm only going to limit my client and me.
To make more sense, I was working with a young girl, quadriplegic, hyper extended neck, dislocated hip of five years (doctors said that she didn't need it fixed - that's a whole other story). She had herpes encephalitis of the brain. The main reason that she was brought to me was that the legs were so rigid that not only could you not get her in a car seat but it was almost impossible to diaper her. She was six at the time.
One of the first things that I noticed was that when I put her into various positions (a slight roll to her system) she had a gurgle and slight cough or more of a clearing. I wouldn't add variation into what I was doing until her lungs settled. I didn't know at the time that she couldn't clear her lungs. She needed to be suctioned. After the second lesson, she could breathe on her own and cough. What did I do to help her breathe? If I had made that a 'goal' of mine, I don't think that I could have achieved it. I do ask me clients about why they are here to see me. Or why they think that they might need in their life. All I really need to know if there is a particular area that needs caution for some reason - a recent break for example.
All I really know about Alex is that he broke his back and femur during snow boarding which left him a quadriplegic. When we started, he could move his right foot, right index finger, left wrist has feeling throughout most of his system but can pinpoint the location or put a word to it.
What I love about the Anat Baniel Method is how the approach is to the entire system. It's the body, brain and central nervous system. There isn't a word for it in English but that's the way it works. The biggest problem that a person's brain has when they have a global trauma to the system (brain injury, Parkinson's, ms, MD, spinal cord, etc) is that the brain's response is get me back to where I was. I could do this yesterday and this is how I did it. When I start working with the system, it's today and now. I need to communicate at the exact level that your system is at this very moment. It's my job to find a way to teach the brain how to have a new way to communicate to their body and central nervous system. Not to exert the effort that it is now needed to pick up a cup the old way. To show him a way to do it today, with less effort and new neuro pathways.
You can now stop by his house and tickle his left foot. How cool is that?! After two lessons, he's getting ankle rotation and sensation throughout his body. I'm also talking to him through the entire system. Telling the brain what I'm doing so it can learn a new movement vocabulary.
I don't know his official diagnosis and I don't really care. The difference between what I do and everyone else is that my one and only job for Alex or anyone else that I work with is what can I do to make your life better. If I looked at anyone as a diagnosis first then I'm only going to limit my client and me.
To make more sense, I was working with a young girl, quadriplegic, hyper extended neck, dislocated hip of five years (doctors said that she didn't need it fixed - that's a whole other story). She had herpes encephalitis of the brain. The main reason that she was brought to me was that the legs were so rigid that not only could you not get her in a car seat but it was almost impossible to diaper her. She was six at the time.
One of the first things that I noticed was that when I put her into various positions (a slight roll to her system) she had a gurgle and slight cough or more of a clearing. I wouldn't add variation into what I was doing until her lungs settled. I didn't know at the time that she couldn't clear her lungs. She needed to be suctioned. After the second lesson, she could breathe on her own and cough. What did I do to help her breathe? If I had made that a 'goal' of mine, I don't think that I could have achieved it. I do ask me clients about why they are here to see me. Or why they think that they might need in their life. All I really need to know if there is a particular area that needs caution for some reason - a recent break for example.
All I really know about Alex is that he broke his back and femur during snow boarding which left him a quadriplegic. When we started, he could move his right foot, right index finger, left wrist has feeling throughout most of his system but can pinpoint the location or put a word to it.
What I love about the Anat Baniel Method is how the approach is to the entire system. It's the body, brain and central nervous system. There isn't a word for it in English but that's the way it works. The biggest problem that a person's brain has when they have a global trauma to the system (brain injury, Parkinson's, ms, MD, spinal cord, etc) is that the brain's response is get me back to where I was. I could do this yesterday and this is how I did it. When I start working with the system, it's today and now. I need to communicate at the exact level that your system is at this very moment. It's my job to find a way to teach the brain how to have a new way to communicate to their body and central nervous system. Not to exert the effort that it is now needed to pick up a cup the old way. To show him a way to do it today, with less effort and new neuro pathways.
You can now stop by his house and tickle his left foot. How cool is that?! After two lessons, he's getting ankle rotation and sensation throughout his body. I'm also talking to him through the entire system. Telling the brain what I'm doing so it can learn a new movement vocabulary.
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