Physical therapy has lots of benefits for active people. Athletes, performers, weekend warriors, and people who work in physically demanding jobs can all benefit from the expertise of a physical therapist. Here are 3 ways physical therapists help active people stay that way.

Injury Treatment

Active people get hurt. Physical therapists have the knowledge and skills to help people recover from injuries faster. In addition to helping people recover, physical therapists will look for the root cause of the injury and address that as well, to help keep the injury from coming back. If the injury is severe and requires surgery, a physical therapist will guide the recovery and make sure the person gets back to their activity. But in some cases, a physical therapist can help an injured person avoid surgery in the first place. But remember, your PT can’t do your exercises for you!

Physical Therapists Help with Injury Prevention

Surgery isn’t the only thing physical therapists can help people avoid. A physical therapist can also help with injury prevention too. A thorough assessment of an athlete’s strength, mobility, balance, and coordination helps to identify issues that could lead to injury. A PT can then design a program to improve the problem areas before they lead to injury. A PT can also assess an existing training plan and help to identify areas that may lead to sprains, strains, or over training.

Improve Performance

In addition to helping people improve areas where they’re weak, therapists can help people get better in areas of strength. A physical therapist can create a program to improve strength, flexibility, coordination, agility or speed. Physical therapists are movement experts. They can break down the requirements of a specific physical task like lifting or throwing, then design a training program that will help people meet those demands.

Physical Therapy is more than just a way to get back on your feet after an injury. It can also help you stay at the top of your game. Whether you’re an athlete, a dancer, or someone who wants to stay in shape, physical therapy can help you reach your performance goals. With the right exercises and treatments, physical therapists can help you improve strength, flexibility, and endurance. They help so that you can perform at your best and lower your risk of injury.

Nearly 5 million people in the United States have fibromyalgia. This chronic condition causes widespread pain, fatigue, and cognitive issues. It can be difficult to manage and can severely impact quality of life. It usually shows up between the ages of 30 and 50, and 80% to 90% of the people affected are women. There is no cure, but the best treatment plans combine exercise, modalities, and education to help manage symptoms. Physical therapists are experts in all three, so they’re the perfect practitioner to help with fibromyalgia!

Your PT Can Give Exercises to Help Your Fibromyalgia

Physical therapists are well known as experts in exercise, so they’re an obvious choice when it comes to helping people with fibromyalgia. Currently, recommendations for the management of fibromyalgia include patient education and non-pharmacological interventions. So the right exercise routine can help with pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, depression, and more. A combination of strengthening, stretching, and aerobic exercise is the most effective. You and your PT will work together to find the right type and intensity of exercise to best manage your symptoms.

Modalities To Move Through Fibromyalgia

Exercise isn’t the only tool your PT has to help you with fibromyalgia though. Gentle manual therapy and massage have been shown to help reduce pain and muscle stiffness caused by fibromyalgia. Physical therapists also use modalities to reduce symptoms. For example, your physical therapist may use:

• Electrical Stimulation
• Laser
• Biofeedback
• Dry Needling

Education

Education is another important component in treating fibromyalgia. A physical therapist spends more time with their patients than most other practitioners. Therefore, they have the time to help you understand what’s going on, and what you can do about it. Research shows that people with more knowledge about their condition have better outcomes, more confidence, and cope better.

Physical therapists can help with pain management, strength, mobility, fatigue and function to help patients find relief from their symptoms and improve the quality of their lives. While we still don’t have a cure for fibromyalgia, people can move through it with the right help.

References

1. Therex effectiveness – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5632473/
2. PT for fibromyalgia – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31140398/
3. Exercises for fibro – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29185675/
4. Manual therapy for fibro – ​​https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32604939/
5. Effectiveness of exercise with fatigue, etc for fibro – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32721388/
6. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11028838/https://pubmd.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36051912/

Music is one of the most universal ways of expression and communication for people. It is present in our everyday lives, regardless of age or culture. Music is an enjoyable activity in its simplest form, but its influence goes well beyond simple amusement. Music has so many benefits. There have been numerous studies done supporting how music helps, from brain development to improving mental health. 

It is not surprising that there are great benefits of music in child development. Parents use music to calm and sooth children, to express love, and to engage their children. It is so wonderful to know that by this simple act we are impacting our child’s development in so many ways!

The Many Benefits of Music

Studies have been done that show providing musical experiences during childhood can accelerate brain development, especially language and reading skills. Other studies have shown that learning to play an instrument can improve mathematical learning. 

The benefits of music go well beyond that of helping academic achievement. Music stimulates basically all areas of child development! In early development, music helps children learn sounds and meaning of words. Dancing to music enhances motor skills and self-expression. 

Infants recognize the melody of a song before they can understand the words. Quiet background music can help calm and sooth, while simple short songs can be sung about bathing, dressing, and other daily activities. 

How to Incorporate Music

Toddlers are at a movement stage of development and language is erupting! Dance, dance, dance to all types of music. Songs with repetition will encourage language and help develop memory skills. Simple songs, like the cleanup song, can make transitions smoother. Be creative…your child will love it!

Preschoolers! They just love to sing and are so eager to let their everyone hear their voice. They are not self-conscious about their ability and burst with pride when you meet songs with clapping and cheering. Preschoolers typically gravitate towards songs that repeat words and melodies, use rhythms with a definite beat, and have them do things and follow directions. Finger plays are also favorites among this age group.

As children move into school age they begin to develop likes and dislikes of different types of music. Many children express interest in learning to play an instrument, join youth choirs, or simply enjoy putting on “performances” for their family. 

There is really no downside of engaging children, of all ages, or adults for that matter, with music. These are only a few of the benefits of music and ways to incorporate music into children’s lives. Check out Empowered Parents for fun music activities for kids and to learn of other benefits that music has to offer.

There are so many things that provide enormous benefits for kids as they develop. Check out our previous Youth Sports blog to find learn about the many benefits that playing sports provides.

Puzzles can be a great activity for individuals of many different ages. But, did you know that puzzles have a purpose and support many areas of your child’s development?

Areas of Development

Puzzles can support areas of your child’s cognitive development. The cognitive skills puzzles address include spatial awareness, problem-solving, focus, and working memory. Use puzzles to practice, develop, and refine these skills. Additionally, puzzles help teach the child about choices and strategy. Kids can also work to develop speech through play with puzzles. With the support of an adult, puzzles can be used to support expanding your child’s expressive and receptive language skills. Fine motor skills of grasping and hand-eye coordination can also be supported through play with puzzles. Puzzles require the child to turn, flip, and slide the pieces, which can help to support dexterity and finger strength. Puzzle play can help nurture areas of emotional development, including persistence and frustration tolerance.

Purpose of Puzzles – Tips for Teaching

Puzzles can support development for a wide range of ages. Therefore, it is helpful to provide your child with the appropriate challenge, not too easy and not too hard.

• Select a puzzle that is appropriate for your child’s development and skill level. Ensure that your child can be successful, then increase the challenge from there.
• Show your child a demonstration of how to put the pieces together.
• Describe the piece and what you see on the piece to your child to promote language development and observation skills.
• Sort the pieces by color to practice color skills and categorize items that look alike.
• Cue your child to turn or spin the piece around and try all the different sides of the piece.
• Encourage your child with praise when they get the pieces together.
• Simplify it by giving them just a few pieces at a time or giving them the puzzle already partially together.

What is a speech sound disorder? The term “Speech Sound Disorder” encompasses a variety of disorders with variable causes that may affect a child’s speech. A child may have difficulty with speech sound production due to difficulty with motor planning, a disorganized phonological system, or they simply do not know how to say a sound. Treatment will vary depending on the cause of your child’s speech sound errors, so it is best to ask advice from your speech language pathologist for tips on how to best help your individual child’s needs at home.  Here are some overarching tips on how to help. 

5 Tips to Help A Speech Sound Disorder at Home

• Repeat what your child just said but with correct pronunciation. It is also helpful to emphasize the incorrect sound your child produced. For example, your child said, “Look, a goggie!” Revise their pronunciation by saying, “Oh, I see the doggie!”

• Avoid imitating your child’s errors no matter how cute they can be. If you prefer, you might video their utterances to admire them, but try not to reinforce the incorrect sound productions.

• Model words during play or daily activities. For example, you might model the words, “see, swing, sound, and ice” while on a walk with your child. Even without asking your child to say the word back, they are subconsciously learning from the auditory input you provide. 

• Practice successful words. Practicing words your child can say well will given them a sense of accomplishment, and they will be practicing the sound correctly instead of incorrectly. 

• Start simple. As with any task, we start with simple words when working on new sounds in speech. If your child is working on S, start with modeling “see” or “ice” repetitively. Once your child has heard the word many times, they might try to say it. If they don’t say it correctly, that’s okay! They tried! Acknowledge their effort by saying something like, “Oh, I see the car too!”

These suggestions do not have you asking your child to repeat words. Children might become understandably frustrated when asked to frequently repeat words. Additionally, incorrect practice reinforces the incorrect pronunciation. Children benefit significantly from auditory input, and if they choose to imitate your models, that is a bonus!

We often get asked about multiple languages within a home, and if it’s “okay” to be teaching toddlers two (or more) languages. We always encourage this and love to see young children learning bilingualism.

Some helpful notes to remember:

We would expect a bilingual child to meet age appropriate milestones at the same time as an English-only speaker. Firstly, at least one word by one year. This can be in either language and pronunciation does not need to be perfect. We “count” a word when it is used consistently and appropriately in the correct context. So, “awa” for “agua” OR “wawa” for “water” are typical speech sound approximations.

Secondly, consistent babbling in infancy and a variety of speech sounds across different syllable shapes by age 1. This may be a combination of different sounds from different languages or sounds grouped together by language.

Lastly, a total of more than 50 words by age 2. These can be either language. The goal is a combination of 50+. A dominant language is likely to emerge as they reach toddlerhood. If your child is hearing English in the community and at school, and a second language only at home, it is likely that they will prefer to express themselves in English across all contexts for a period of time. This can be expected and does not indicate a “problem” in their secondary language.

Language Differences do not Equal a Language Disorder.

A preference for one language over another is a language difference and does not necessarily indicate a need for therapy. A grammatical error due to a difference in one primary language vs another does not indicate a need for therapy, but may better benefit from an English Language Acquisition tutor. Consistent difficulty acquiring a mode of communication in BOTH languages, with delayed milestones overall, despite adequate exposure, is a language disorder, and may benefit from a visit from a Speech Language Pathologist to help their bilingualism develop.

5 Easy Ways to Incorporate Bilingualism Across Your Toddler’s Day

We are using Spanish as an example to demonstrate this. Choose to speak only one language in the home. If the child has English exposure at school, offer only Spanish in the home environment. Refer to common items in Spanish as they present across day to day activities. Don’t translate new concepts into English, instead offer only in Spanish, and introduce English later on. Pick a new Spanish word each week to encourage your toddler to use. Express everyday phrases (i.e. “Good morning”) in day to day routines in Spanish. Pick one activity per day that is Spanish dominant (i.e. Dinner time, 15 minutes of play time on the floor, the car ride to school etc.). Also, you can make sure your child is ready to learn multiple langues before they even start talking by practicing prelinguistic skills.