Your grandma would have called it being ” double jointed”. Your mom might mention that she was the most flexible person in every yoga class she attended. But when extra joint motion reduces your child’s performance or creates pain, parents get concerned. Sometimes pediatricians and orthopedists do not.
Why would that happen? A measure of flexibility is considered medically within the norm for children and teens. Doctors often have no experience with rehab professionals, so they can’t share other resources with parents. This can mask some significant issues with mild to moderate hypermobility in children. Parents leave the doctor’s office without a diagnosis or advice, even in the face of their child’s discomfort or their struggles with handwriting or recurrent sports injuries. Who takes hypermobility seriously? Your child’s OT and PT.
Therapists are the specialists who analyze functional performance and create effective strategies to improve stability and independence. I will give a shout-out to orthotists, physiatrists and osteopaths for solutions such as splints and prolotherapy. Their role is essential but limited, especially with younger children. Nobody is going to issue a hand splint or inject the ligaments of a child under 5 unless a child’s condition is becoming very poor very quickly. Adaptations, movement education and physical treatments are better tolerated and result in more functional gains for most middle and moderately involved hypermobile children. Take a look at Hypermobility and Proprioception: Why Loose Joints Create Sensory Processing Problems for Children to understand more about what an OT can do to help your child.
Low tech doesn’t mean low quality or low results. I have done short consults with children that involve only adaptations to sitting and pencil choice for handwriting, with a little ergonomic advice and education of healthy pacing of tasks thrown in. All together, we manage to extend the amount of time a child can write without pain. Going full-tilt paperless is possible when pain is extreme, but it involves getting the teachers and the district involved. Not only is that time-consuming and difficult to coordinate, it is overkill for those mildly involved kids who don’t want to stand out. Almost nothing is worse in middle school than appearing “different”. A good OT and a good PT can help a child prevent future problems, make current ones evaporate, or minimize a child’s dependence and pain.
Hypermobile kids are often bright and resourceful, and once they learn basic principles of ergonomics and joint protection, the older children can solve some of their own problems. For every child that is determined to force their body to comply with their will to compete without adaptation, I meet many kids that understand that well-planned movements are smarter and give them less pain with more capability. But they have to have the knowledge in order to use it. Therapists give them that power.
Parents: please feel free to comment and share all your great solutions for your child with hypermobility, so that we all can learn from YOU!
Is your hypermobile child also struggling with toilet training or incontinence? Check out Low Tone and Toilet Training: Learning to Hold It In Long Enough to Make It to The Potty to gain an understanding of how motor and sensory issues contribute to this problem, and how you can help your child today!
