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Thursday 17 March 2011

Osteopathy and cerebral palsy

I'm feeling better. Still tired but more positive about everything again. Plus I had a massage this morning which has really helped my aches and pains which unsurprisingly has helped everything else (she is excellent by the way). I've also had a great afternoon with Seth. Recently he's been so tired after school that he's pretty unresponsive but today he's enjoyed helping with feeding, drinking and even just waved good night to me. Earlier he grabbed a toy as well. So I really am a happy chicken at the moment.

I follow Cerebra on Twitter. Yesterday they sent out a tweet about a study they conducted on the effectiveness of osteopathic treatment on children with cerebral palsy. I was interested because I take Seth to an osteopath. I've got mixed opinions. I've taken Seth since he was about 4 months old when he was very unhappy all the time and this therapist, Christophe, was recommended. He told me that because of Seth's birth and the trauma to his head that as his head grew the bones weren't growing properly and it was causing pressure and headaches. Apparently, the treatments settled the bones into place and allowed his head to grow properly without pain. This seems fine with me and Seth enjoyed the treatments and his wellbeing improved. However, Christophe really is an arrogant son of a bitch and actually told me the first time he treated Seth that he didn't believe that Seth had brain damage. This has become patently untrue and Christophe has never apologised for his words. The hospital think he's a quack because of other things he's said to other parents (eg arguing with a physio that a child doesn't have cerebral palsy). Anyway I stopped seeing him and am now seeing someone else from that clinic, Pierre. Seth really responds to these treatments - they seem to be working very lightly on him but he's so aware of what is happening to him and seems to feel it profoundly. Then he usually sleeps for hours afterwards. Interestingly, the results of Cerebra's trial found that osteopathy had no beneficial effect on children with cerebral palsy; the researchers found no statistically significant difference in terms of a child’s movement (which was assessed by physiotherapists who did not know if the child had received osteopathic treatment or not), the child’s quality of life, the child’s sleeping patterns and the child’s level of pain. There was also no difference in the quality of life score for the parents and carers in either group. The trial was only over 6 months and I do think that is too short for a trial as I would have thought that benefits would occur over a longer period of time but osteopaths were consulted and they agreed the trial was good. Anyway while Seth seems to be benefiting I shall keep taking him but I thought this was useful to share. I wonder what experiences other people have had taking their kids to osteopaths. Anyone wanna share?

1 comment:

  1. I haven't taken Jack to an osteopath but I do take him to Craniosacral therapy. He has been going for about 3 years now and his limbs have definitely loosened up quite a bit as he used to be so curled up tight at times. He sleeps better too

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