Happy Rehab helps children in Stendalen

At the nursery school, Stendalen, in Fredericia there is room for everyone. The nursery school has 68 children from the ages 0-6 years, 30 of whom have disabilities. Among these children, there are children with autism, syndromes, muscle diseases, and children with cerebral palsy. The children have different individual needs.

In addition to nursery school teachers, there are physiotherapists and one occupational therapist. They are responsible for seeing that the children’s physical disabilities are taken into consideration in daily school life, and that they receive the help they need to develop their physical potential.

The nursery school uses different tools to provide the best possible training for the children that suits each child’s individual needs. For this purpose, they use, among other things, Happy Rehab.

One of Stendalen’s physiotherapists, Susanne Muldager, tells us that they use Happy Rehab for rehabilitation, when, for example, a child with cerebral palsy has had Botox treatment, and needs to train dorsal flexion. In other words, when they need to train mobility of the ankle and the ability to bend the foot towards the shin.

Susanne Muldager says that it isn’t possible to run after the children and tell them constantly that they need to lift their forefoot, but that Happy Rehab makes it possible for them to train dorsal flexion, while playing a computer game in the standing support system. At the same time,  the physiotherapist can ensure that they experience success.

Not only for cerebral palsy

Not only children with cerebral palsy benefit from using Happy Rehab at Stendalen. They have also found that it can help children with muscle diseases. They experience faster results, as they don’t have the same neurological challenges as children with cerebral palsy. 

Susanne points out that the child has to be at a certain level physically, in order to benefit from Happy Rehab, because it can be difficult for a child with severe disabilities to do the movements independently. 

The physiotherapists have experienced a girl who was on level 3 on the GMFCS[1] scale learn to use Happy Rehab. She can now use both of her feet during training. Experiences like that are important and motivating.

The children at Stendalen train with Happy Rehab 1-4 times a week, depending on their needs. The physiotherapists create a training programme for the individual child, and in cooperation with teachers and parents, they support the child in doing the exercises correctly. The children are typically in the standing support system 12-18 minutes at a time. It is too tiring to train for a longer time, or more times a day, if the children are to have energy for the rest of the day.

Other children come to Stendalen

Not only the children in the nursery school are helped at Stendalen. The physiotherapists also treat children from other places; children up to 12 years of age who need rehabilitation. These children don’t necessarily have cerebral palsy. The physiotherapists often see children with complicated leg fractures, who need to train their leg muscles. Or children who experience pain when walking and running, because of limited mobility of their feet.

”They come to us in order to be able to trust their own legs again” says Susanne Muldager. 

For this purpose, they also use Happy Rehab, because it is a fun way to train and it is easier to train specific movements with many repetitions.

The standing support system includes different games that suit different children, so each child can play a game he/she finds entertaining.