What Happens After Cerebral Palsy Therapy?

Have you ever wondered what would happen to your child once you are out of the early intervention program? Early intervention services may be pivotal but your child will require a lot of help in terms of rehabilitation and various therapies in order to be able to live their life to the fullest. The reason for the scarcity of information in this field is that not many parents are able to recognize and accept that their children need support after the early intervention stage. Here are a few things that you need to know about how to help your child once they are out of the early intervention phase of cerebral palsy therapy.

What is outpatient rehabilitation?

This is the care that is required to help your child get adjusted and lead an independent life later in the future. During outpatient rehabilitation, your child will be evaluated and offered a therapy that is tailored to their specific needs. A common situation here would be the difficulty in speech. This means that a common component of outpatient rehabilitation would be speech therapy. However, your therapists will be working directly with your child. This means that they will be customizing any required therapies to the specific needs of your child. The idea here is to help your baby with whatever challenges they are facing, and speech therapy is considered a good place to start.

So when can you start?

This usually depends on you and your child. For most parents, having just completed the earlier intervention would mean that they need some time to just rest and stay away from doctors. Well, you may have a justification for taking this route. However, the more you delay the therapies the harder it may become for your child to actually respond to them. This means that you will have delayed the child’s progress. Another common cause for delaying outpatient rehabilitation is insurance.

Currently, however, most health care service providers in this field are able to help with your insurance challenges. This means that you should start as early as possible. You can take a week or two, or even a month after the early intervention, but do not keep your baby away for too long.

How long would this take?

The truth here is that there is no answer for this here. While your therapist may be able to approximate how much time your child will need, it is often dependent on how much progress your child makes during the therapies. This means that outpatient rehabilitation generally takes as long as your child will need depending on the set outcomes. The therapist, however needs to set the right outcomes depending on the challenge that they would like to address with the therapy and the child’s specific situation.

Trying to go beyond the expectations is also a good determinant since sometimes your therapist needs to be sure that they have done their best with your child. Patience and understanding will be of much help for you here. Give the therapists the time that they need to work with your child provided you agree on the set outcomes. Also, be sure to have an open communication with the therapist since you need to know what they are doing if you are to offer the required support in the process.

Most parents complain about accessing the required support services after they are through with the early intervention phase of cerebral palsy therapy. The main problem is in not knowing what to expect or look for in terms of outpatient rehabilitation. Once you find the right relevant health care service provider, you should be able to settle all your fears and concerns by asking all the right questions and trusting that they will give you their best efforts in caring for you and your child.