RECOVERY & REHABILITATION
It’s only Child’s Play OR IS IT?
A
s an experienced Chartered Physiotherapist Jayne Hallford knows the importance in engaging patients in meaningful movement to enable them to achieve their goals. When working with children it is Jayne Hallford important to understand how what and why movement is important to a child and to be able to integrate this into their rehabilitation goals. Movement teaches a child so much, it defines depth and perception, left and right, up and down, strong and light, fast and slow. Play is a child’s work, their occupation, their interaction with the world and cannot be seen as separate from physiotherapy. Reaching for a brick or kicking a ball is more likely to engage a child in their rehabilitation than physio stretches that are abstract and meaningless to a child. Knowing how to incorporate movement into physiotherapy to achieve rehabilitation goals is a key skill but knowing how to engage a child in movement through play is the real skill.
ITS ONLY CHILD’S PLAY OR IS IT? Is Play important? Why even consider it? How do children with a brain or spinal cord injury access play? Do they need to?
ever considered what if anything the child is learning during this time when they are playing? The Oxford Dictionary defines play as –
Engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose. The above definition leads us to think that play is frivolous and has no real life benefit, but is this true? Take a moment– what words/phrases come into your mind when you think about children playing?
running, loud, happy, being with friends, falling out, sharing, throwing, catching, being imaginative, climbing, fun, loud, spontaneous, inquisitive, constructive, making friends, laughter, shouting, burning off energy, calm, physical.
Do physiotherapist’s working with children need to consider play as part of their rehabilitation goals? What role does play have within rehabilitation? So you’ve paused and thought, and some of those words in the cloud above you may have considered and thought about. Does this have any benefit? Let’s break this down even further by looking at one activity. Take for example the play opportunity of making a white house from a selection of brightly coloured plastic bricks.
Play - When we think about play – what comes into our minds? Does anything come into your mind? Have you actually ever thought about why children play? Afterall isn’t it just what children do and what we as adults either expect them to occupy their time with or offer as a break from learning to blow off steam e.g. play times at school. Have you
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