Success Story: Aislin

Aislin began Physical Therapy with THERAPY 2000 because she had limitations with functional mobility. Due to a diagnosis of Torticollis, she viewed the world sideways.

She could roll with modA and was very comfy in one place. However, tight neck muscles restricted her head motion, and she was unable to roll over. While sitting with back support, Aislin’s head would tilt and rotate to the side. She was only able to turn her head halfway before her shoulders would rotate to compensate for restricted neck motion.

At first, Aislin needed lots of motivation to play with toys. She also couldn’t hold a bottle or finger-feed herself. Aislin was under the care of Jennifer Jackson, LPTA and under the supervision of Barbara Rule, PT.

The plan for Physical Therapy was to improve cervical progressive range of motion, active range of motion, strength training, stretching to increase flexibility, balance, bed mobility, manual therapy, and a home exercise program.

During Aislin’s home exercise program, her mother regularly worked on Aislin’s ranges of motion, stretching, and strengthening. She was excited to assist with Aislin’s exercises and activities. During treatment, Jackson would demonstrate activities and Aislin’s mother would excitedly join in and continue to work with Aislin between therapy sessions.

Aislin was always so happy for therapy and smiled big every time Jackson arrived for a session. Aislin also loved seeing Rule during progress visits where she could show-off all the activities she’d been practicing.

For cervical lateral flexion strength, Jackson held Aislin at her waist and tilted her in space for strengthening the sides of her neck. She loves rolling her ball and rolling over to reach toys on both sides. After gaining more stability and increased flexibility in her neck, Aislin began crawling after her ball and scanning her environment more easily.

Therapy progressed to help Aislin roll to both sides independently, sit without assistance, sit and drink from a bottle without falling, crawl evenly on hands and knees, chase her brother and sister, and pull-up on furniture – all while keeping her head straight and balanced.

Because of Physical Therapy with THERAPY 2000, Aislin is a very happy, active baby with a big, beautiful smile. She’s full of giggles and loves eating and feeding herself! She plays independently, is inquisitive, inspects her toys curiously, and crawls around happily. She can kneel to look into her toy box and choose which toy she wants to play with.

She uses her head rotation to scan her environment from shoulder to shoulder, and now, she is taking 2-3 steps without hand support!

Although Aislin met all her goals and transitioned out of therapy, she continues her home program and regularly sends Jackson updates to show off as she achieves more milestones.

Aislin no longer sees the world sideways. She holds her head high, with confidence and determination to do “her own thing.”