Defining strategies for remediation in rehabilitation

Task 1. Read the text for detail.

Alexander Method. Gerda Alexander, a German, calls her method Eutony. " Eu" in Greek means “good, well, harmonious”, and “tomis”means “tension”. This method involves focusing on the unity of the total person. It increases one's awareness of his bodily systems and influences the way he functions.

Conductive Education System. This is a method of learning called “rhythmic intention”. In it, each task to be learned is broken down into component parts; each part is practiced separately until success is reached. Rhythmic intent as a method of learning claims to involve the client's motor, linguistic, perceptual and cognitive abilities. When several clients are working together, the group provides further motivation.

Cranio-Sacral Therapy. It involves the understanding of the cranio-sacral system and the specific techniques used by those who have been trained in this method. This modality is used with persons with neuromuscular dysfunction and helps to identify and reduce accumulated pain and stress, calm down the autonomic system, lower blood pressure and fevers, remove transient and minor restrictions, relax muscles, improve fluid exchange and blood flow, lengthen the spine, and promote general relaxation and a balancing of the body system.

Feldenkrais Method. The Feldenkrais method is an educational, neuromuscular approach to improve function. It strives toward ease of movement and improved coordination. This is accomplished through increased awareness, sensitivity and coordination. The entire sensory-motor system is involved in order to unravel habitual patterns and replace them with better motorfunction through changing the person's perception of movement.

Feldenkrais Awareness through Movement is based on several concepts: that one needs to learn at one's own rate, that movement is the vehicle for learning and that one need to have alternative ways of moving. Learning must be pleasurable and it mustbe easy. These two elements increase relaxed breathing. He felt that emphasis should be on the action of learning the movement, not the goal to be obtained; one needs to be aware of the learning process.

Handling Techniques. Any hands-on technique, which can be used to manipulate the posture or limbs of a client for therapeutic reasons, is called a “handling technique.” Facilitatory techniques are special handling techniques used by the therapist to increase the ease in carrying out a functional action or to inhibit neural responses. They assist the client by enhancing function. Handling techniques are used by caregivers and therapists to handle a person at key points in such a way as to maintain normalor near normal posture and are used when moving a person from one position to another. Inhibitory techniques are also handling techniques which inhibit (restrain or interfere with) an action or a process. Therapists use inhibitory techniques to reduce spasticity, or to relax or slow down undesirable actions.

Holistic Treatment. Holistic refers to treatment of the whole or consideration of all functional aspects of a person. Holistic treatment deals with all aspects of a person's function and dysfunction and usually encompasses many different approaches.

Myofacial Release. Myofacial release relates to the fascia of the body. The facial is a three-dimensional connective tissue, which runs from thehead to the foot throughout the body. Its purpose is to support structures by holding tissues together as well as separating structures so that they can move without friction. Myofacial Release is the lengthening of superficial and deep body tissue through a gentle and sustained stretch.

Neuro-developmental Treatment (NDT). This method is based on the recognition of the interference of normal maturation of the brain leading to arrest of motor development and the presence of abnormal postural reflex activity. The aim of this handling technique is to inhibit abnormal movement patterns while facilitating normal reactions and movement.

Perceptual-Motor-Stimulation. Perception refers to the interpretation in the brain of sensations one takes in. Motor is a movement response. Perceptual motor stimulation refers to activities what increase when the brain interprets, feels or senses and the motor responses as the result.

Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF). PNF is “a method of promoting or hastening the response of the neuromuscular mechanism through stimulation of the proprioceptor”. The PNF patterns and techniques are used both independently and with exercises, gait training and self-care activities to develop strength, balance and motor learning.

Rood: Neurophysiological Approach. This treatment approach involves activation, facilitation, and inhibition of muscle actions, voluntary and involuntary.

Sensorimotor Stimulation. Sensorimotor stimulation techniques are applied according to the theoretical base of the professional using them – i.e., physical, occupational, speech therapists; physical educators. movement therapists, child development specialists and so on. There is a great deal of change occurring in the approaches being used in treatment because of the growth in the knowledge of how the central nervous system actually functions. Many of the “old” techniques are outmoded since the reasoning behind their development has been found to be inaccurate and the techniques have been either “revised” or discarded in order to apply to the current base of knowledge about function.

Sensory Integration or (SI). Sensory Integrationis a system of treatment techniques, based on theories of evaluation and treatment developed by A.J. Ayres, an occupational therapist. It involves active participation by the client in purposeful activities, which are always initiated and directed by him. It requires the client to make an adaptive response to his environment. In this process, activities, which are rich in proprioceptive vestibular and tactile input are not repeated but are done as a continuous series of events. The therapist manipulates the environment to obtain the desired results for the dysfunction and to facilitate or inhibit neurological functions or stated goals of improving the processing and organization of sensation. Sensory integration does not include the teaching of skills or the arousal of specific sensations such as applying tactile stimulation to a client or placing the client in an activity, which provides him with vestibular stimulation.

Tactile Stimulation. Tactile refers to the sense of touch. Tactile stimulation can include any type of arousal of the touch system; it may include direct excitation to the skin or having the client engage in tactically arousing activities.

Vestibular Stimulation. Vestibular refers to the vestibular apparatus of the inner ear, which includes those parts innervated by the eighth cranial nerve: the saccule, utricle, semicircular canals, vestibular nerve and vestibular nuclei, and those parts of the brain, which are directly affected by this system. The vestibular system responds to type, direction, angle, and speed of movement and head position enabling a person to orient in space and time and maintain a sense of equilibrium or balance.

(L.M. Evans. A multi-dimensional model for conceptualizing the design of child behaviour therapy. – John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2004. – P. 237-51.)