Paediatric intensive therapy - what is it and would my child benefit from it?
- Mitchell Finlayson
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Whether you’re new to the paediatric therapy space or you’ve seen it all, you’ve probably heard of intensive therapy. This term alone can sound overwhelming especially if your little one is still quite young. There’s a lot of misconceptions about intensive therapy but here are some answers to those commonly asked questions.
1. What is intensive therapy?
Intensive therapy traditionally combines a variety of treatments such as occupational, speech, and physical therapy, to ensure that the child receives a combination of therapies that are specifically tailored to the unique physical and intellectual challenges that a child with a neurological or genetic disorder may encounter. The intensive model of therapy has been used all over the world as its growing benefits are being observed in children with Cerebral Palsy and other neurological conditions. By achieving high repetitions of exercise over a short period of time, the child is utilizing the components of neuroplasticity and motor learning. Depending on the age, diagnosis, tolerance of therapy, goals, family dynamics and access to therapy, the child can receive therapy either daily, twice a week or three times a week, over a 2-4 week period.
2. What are the benefits of intensive therapy?
Therapy has been shown to improve gross motor function in children with cerebral palsy (Arpino, Carlaa; Vescio, Maria Fenicia, 2010).
Components of gross motor function can include:
3. How long do the effects last?
Effects can last from months to years. One study looking at long term change in children with CP completing regular intensive therapy blocks found they were still exhibiting improvements in gross motor function up to 25 months later (Anne Brit Sorsdahl, Rolf Moe-Nilssen, Else Mari Larsen, 2018). Every child responds differently to therapy and depending on the age of the child and their neuroplasticity we initially see a large degree of rapid improvement in function followed by steady improvements at a less rapid rate.
4. Is it worth the time and money?
Prior to the intensive start, the physiotherapist will discuss your goals for your child’s therapy to ensure there are clear and measurable targets. The therapist will ensure these goals relate to function. Function for a child relates to age-appropriate skills they perform every day and depending on your child’s disability these will be different from child to child. This could be rolling on the floor so they can interact with toys and learn from their environment, standing up from the floor on their own so they don’t always need an adult to help them, or riding a specialised bike so they can go on family bike rides. Whatever the skill, it will be around building independence and engagement in the community. Building independence and confidence in a child, not only benefits the child’s mental welling but the family and community too, meaning the pay-off for intensive therapy has multiple flow on effects. Goals will be reassessed at the end of the intensive block to clearly show the therapy effect. The therapy can be completed either in the home, park or kindergarten to limit families needing to take time off work.
Choosing the right child and family for intensive therapy depends on the family and child’s priorities. This therapy can require a child to repetitively attend difficult tasks for an extended period. If your child struggles with focus they will need more behaviour and engagement support from the therapist which may reduce the impact of physical training. It may be worth doing some intensive therapy with an OT to build attention skills prior to working on physical skills in a physiotherapy intensive.
5. Does intensive therapy have any harmful effects on the child?
Like any therapy, intensive therapy is trying to bring about changes in the musculoskeletal and neurological systems by increasing muscle strength, motor control, coordination and creating new neural pathways to learn new skills. It’s hard! But it’s meant to be hard because the body is learning new strategies and laying down new neural pathways. Think of when you’ve started going to the gym more often; you get more hungry, more tired, your muscles hurt, you might be a bit more irritable. That’s what happens to children. As long as they have ample opportunity to eat, sleep and rest, the negative effects of intensive therapy can be limited. We suggest providing more snacks, plenty of water, early bedtime, low key weekends and cessation of regular/ weekly therapy during these intensive blocks. The therapy we perform at Physiotherapy for Children doesn’t involve physically pushing the child to perform anything they are physically resisting, so the risk for physical injury is minimal. The risk for injury is no higher than it is for regular therapy.
We hope that this has given you some insight into intensive therapy. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us on info@physiotherapyforchildren.com.au.
Thanks for reading!
From the team at Physiotherapy for Children
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