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At Great Strides We Make Everyday Lives Better

Community Outreach, , ,

At Great Strides We Make Everyday Lives Better
By Christina Swanson

Parenting a child with special needs requires meeting a host of challenges with positive determination, patience and unwavering persistence as the child grows and needs change. Eyes and hearts are opened as family members learn gratitude for everyday things and how simple hygiene and basic tasks, which are normally learned with ease and taken for granted, can be a difficult and pain-staking exercise for a disabled child and a time-intensive ritual for the child’s professional therapists, parents or caregiver.

A big part of Great Stride’s focus is to work as a team with the child, parents and/or caregiver, and teacher outside the classroom to help them learn the skills to be more independent which, in turn, increases the child’s confidence and potential to adapt and learn other skills while freeing-up the parent to meet the other many requirements of their day.

Recently, two Great Strides professional therapists extended their caring reach to teach a student/patient specific tasks by adapting equipment and creating specialized exercises that truly goes above and beyond their duties and speaks volumes to their dedication. Conquering something as seemingly simple as getting in and out of mom’s car and being able to clean oneself after using the toilet, has been a true victory for the child and family alike.

The Bidet Adaption Challenge

Young Brandon Belzer is a Great Strides outpatient who receives both occupational and physical therapy within a close collaborative team approach where his mom, Kimberly Belzer, is highly involved.   When Kimberly got the idea to install a bidet on her toilet to relieve her having to be with Brandon every time he used the bathroom, his therapists went to work at teaching Brandon about the many  hand and arm movements  needed for him to turn the small knob that operated this bidet so he could be self-sufficient.

But Brandon didn’t seem to have the strength or ability to understand the proper way to make the knob turn which set in motion another innovative Great Strides success story thanks to the creative construction of Great Strides Executive Director, Dr. Jon Edenfield, OTD, OTR/L, Brandon’s occupational therapist, Hilda Harrison, and an innovative installation at Brandon’s home by Hilda’s husband, Wayne Powell, who is an engineer.  This team looked into ways of adapting the equipment to the skill level of what Brandon could do. In looking for additional products that could change the bidet to have an easy button for Brandon to push instead of turning a knob, there was nothing available on the market. So, Edenfield, Harrison and Powell set to designing adaptive equipment from available parts and combining them together into a final “adaptive” product that’s not available in a store or even yet invented.

Using regular water lines, a lawn sprinkler valve, a low voltage power supply, and a Big Red button type switch, the bidet was adapted, allowing it to bypass the knob operation.  This adaptation resulted in a major functional outcome for Brandon who now independently operates his bidet every day using the Big Red switch.  Both Kimberly and Brandon are thrilled!

 

“As special needs parents, we are always trying to make our kids as independent as possible and have them be less vulnerable and dependent on others to perform everyday function which, of course, helps them grow and makes it a lot easier for us as parents,” explained Kimberly. “Now Brandon can go to the bathroom independent without me having to constantly get up and help him. The people at Great Strides are truly amazing in their caring because they know it is really about helping the children. It is a blessing to me that Great Strides is a true partner in helping our children become functional.”
The Entering/Leaving Car Challenge

Another easy to take for granted ability is to be able to get in and out of a car unaided. If you think about it, it’s kind of a complicated motion involving crouching forward, lifting the initial leg, ducking the head, etc.

Brandon’s physical therapist, John Kirkland, initiated a simulated car therapy based on observational gait analysis and Brandon’s known history of visual impairment, increased extensor tone, rigid adherence to routine, aversion to novel tasks and limited verbal and comprehension abilities. It appeared the inability of Brandon to transfer from the parking lot or driveway into his mom’s SUV keyed upon his inability to step up and translate his center of mass forward while in a crouch stance.  Kirkland determined that a small portion of this task was challenging for Brandon. However, this part task was essential due to the relatively low head clearance and high floorboard relative to the ground in mom’s SUV.  There were also concerns with his ability to pivot into his car seat once he steps into the car.

Kirkland used the principles of over-training, part task training, meaningful rewards, and verbal and tactile cueing with Brandon. He did this by creating a simulated physical situation where he hung a piece of cardboard horizontally from the clinic ceiling to replicate the car ceiling, used a step-up bench that approximated the height of the floorboard of the car and an object on the seat that required him to pivot in order to sit down.  The cardboard was painted to match the color of mom’s car and several other objects were used to simulate the bench seat of the car.

Then everything was set for Brandon to practice stepping up under a low ceiling with the bandwidth of reward, cueing, and assistance appropriately withdrawn.

The key was Brandon’s ability to generalize the task to his mom’s car, which he successfully accomplished after only two to three trials.  A total success and the cost of the project was a nominal $6.00 but helping make mom’s life easier is – PRICELESS!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simply the BEST

News, ,

Dr. Jon Edenfield Earns University of St. Augustine’s Health Sciences 20th Anniversary Occupational Therapy Professional Program Award

By Christina Swanson

Out of 1,400 occupational therapy graduates from the University of St. Augustine for Health Science’s (USAHS) Occupational Therapy (OT) Program — 20 years’ worth — one graduate stood out from all the rest. DR. JON EDENFIELD OTD, OTR/L, founder and director of Great Strides Rehabilitation Center in Mandarin, was presented with the 20th Anniversary Occupational Therapy Professional Award from the university’s Board of Directors for his outstanding commitment to the occupational therapy profession in leadership, advocacy, service, scholarship, mentorship and innovation.

Edenfield and his family were flown out to Carlsbad, CA, to receive this one-time award in celebration of the 20th anniversary of occupational therapy at the university, and the 100th anniversary of occupational therapy as a profession.

After earning his undergraduate degree in OT at the University of Florida, Edenfield attended and completed his masters at USAHS when the OT program was in its infancy, graduating in 2000 where he was presented with the outstanding OT student award. After working with special needs children he saw that most require multiple types of therapies with specialists typically at different locations. That’s when Edenfield created Great Strides — a comprehensive rehabilitation center for children – providing unique interdisciplinary teams of specialists at one rehab and special education facility so parents can meet their child’s varied needs in one location. He also earned his doctorate from USAHS, researching his capstone project for three years, titled “Pilot Study: The physiological effects of animal assisted therapy on children with autism spectrum disorder.”

This pilot study was based on working with Nantuckett, after he completed the year-long process of acquiring and learning how to work with a service dog. “We came to the conclusion that having children interact with the dog before their sessions, whether therapy or educational, meant they would be more alert and receptive to learning and communicate and behave better,” said Edenfield.

In only 13 years, Great Strides has grown from a one-room space to a 19,000 square foot new building employing 85 specialists and assistants, helping children with disabilities from birth to 21-years-old. Great Strides also has after-school programs with speech, behavior and music therapies, with specialists also working with medically fragile daycares and schools.

“My biggest triumph is to take a family that has just found out that their child has been diagnosed with a disability, and give them a road map of help so they know that it is going to be OK,” said Edenfield. “Their life may be different than their original paradigm but they and their child are still going to have a good life.”

As Edenfield approached the podium, the USAHS presenter praised him for “upholding the legacy of the university with his innovative and broad range of programs helping special needs children.” The award ceremony also honored exceptional USAHS faculty.