Is the physical therapy effective?

My son and daughter are doing physical therapy. Both therapists are familiar with EDS, so make sure you find one that is. Some exercises can hurt EDS patients more than help. Each of them are taking different approaches due to my children having different issues with their EDS. My daughter has more instability with her neck, so she does exercises that strengthen her neck and back muscles while safely supported. She is also working on her posture and balance to strengthen her hips. My son is working on his balance, proprioception, and lengthening the tight muscles on his thighs. They both do some ball work for eye-hand coordination and recumbent bike for their legs and hips (they both have POTS as well as EDS). I think it has helped them both, not only with stabilizing their joints, but with giving them more confidence in their bodies (they can predict where to put their hand to catch the ball, they can catch themselves better on the balance tasks). Swimming will be good for your son as well, especially if he gets dizzy a lot. 

I agree, physical therapy can be very helpful but it can be harmful if the therapist is familiar with EDS  or does not test your child's specific areas of issue.  It may also need to be adjusted overtime. However, in most cases I found that physical therapy to strengthen the muscles in areas where ligaments and joints are not as strong as they might be in a non-EDS child Has produced positive results.

Fisioterapia e exercícios sõa ondicados em EDS mas devem ser acompanhados de um profissional que conheça a síndrome. Fisioterapia e exercícios devem visar o fortalecimento musculo-esquelético e o ganho de propriocepção. Deve ser analisado qual exercício melhor se adapta ao paciente. Fugindo de exercícios de impacto. A natação é muito indicada pois a água ajuda os pacientes. Mas prestar atenção se deslocamentos e subluxações de ombro não são desencadeadas com a prática da natação.

I have an EDS friendly Physical Therapist, and have found the exercises to be very helpful. He identified several muscles that were weak, and I was recruiting the wrong muscles to compensate. To strengthen the weak ones, I get exercises that involve gentle movement using resistance bands. I gradually increase the amount of repetitions or increase the weight of the band. This has helped to target muscles that weren't doing their jobs, and now we're moving to other areas of my body to strengthen the muscles that support the joints to keep them in good shape as long as possible. Swimming can be good exercise, I love doing my exercises in a heated therapy pool as the warm water relaxes my muscles. I also do some walking around my neighborhood. It's also important to have some massage, muscle work, or acupuncture on a regular basis to treat the muscle spasms or achiness that can be triggered by new exercises.

Physiotherapy is essential with eds... Esp as a child... Don't think of it as crazy hard and your son will have to go gym or anything scary... 

The swimming will be really good for him.. Also yoga and Pilates

also listen to him if it hurts too much the next day then do a little less next time... Try and work out his base line tolerance, so the most he can do on a bad day! This is handy so it gives hime something to revert back to during a flare up while still doing some sort of excerise..

try and book an appointment with a podiatrist to make sure his trainers fit him well and that he dosnt have flat feet... If he dose (really common in eds) then they will make him correctional insoles that he can wear everyday and esp during any  physiotherapy  and  exercise...

 

its best to get him into a habit of stretching all the time that will really help his joints.. Also being taught at a young age to check your joints are in the right place and not hyper extending is a really good thing for him to know 

Also if he is getting dislocations,sprains on certain joints like knees, thumbs, ankles etc.... You can get soft splits that keep the joint in place while Exercising 

so key points

  Physiotherapy Is good and essential 

  Keep an eye on pain and injurys 

  Start of with light excersises

  Don't be afraid to ask you physiotherapist and the eds community for      help

   And always come up with stretches or light Exercises he can do on a bad day.. Even if it's just wiggling toes :-) 

Swimming is really good and hospitals do offer hydrotherapy sessions to teach  exercises you can do in water if you arnt swimming.. I wrote an blog post about a really good swimming  exercise  For people with eds/hms  

http://findingmyrange.com/2015/02/02/7am-swimming/

Good luck I hope he manages to get something out of this :-) 

 

also  physiotherapy is always adaptable... Non of us are the same so go with what you feel is right... And always have things at home to help with the pain and tierdness after like hot water bottles, ice packs and pain killers

here's the swimming guide link /http://findingmyrange.com/2015/02/02/7am-swimming/

Yes but I found hydrotherapy best as it don't put strain on your body as much.

I saw a physiotherapists who new about eds he gave me specific exercises that has helped to strengthen muscles around my joints. I have also found swimming really good.

Even with a knowledgeable physical therapist, know your limits and set your boundaries. Physical therapists tend to be very goal oriented, and may challenge  you to do more than you should. It takes about 72 hours for EDS muscles to recover, so be careful and use caution especially if your muscles are deconditioned. We definitely need exercise, but only the types and amounts our bodies can handle.