Physiotherapy and Speech Therapy
What is our Physiotherapy Service?
Physiotherapy is the main service offered in the center helping not only in the Early Stimulation Program but with older children from 3-18 suffering from disability, special needs or a syndrome as well as those needing after care from an accident or trauma. It is also offered to patients over 18 who suffer the same conditions mentioned.
What are the Top Objectives of the Service?
- To provide professional physiotherapy, speech therapy and early stimulation therapy through the use of evaluation, therapy and treatment planning. A typical therapy plan lasts 3 months with a consistent appointment frequency and a progress evaluation at the end to determine if another therapy plan is required or if the patient can be released from our services.
- To as often as possible include primary carers during the appointments and where possible train them in certain techniques that can be done at home or outside of the center.
- Where possible, to encourage patients themselves to maintain their own health through activities they can do themselves outside of the center and consequently reach their optimum potential.
Details of the Service
The service is offered from 8.30am – 2.30pm usually with more than one patient in attendance. Patients can use certain equipment on a repetitive activity together with our volunteer whilst the Physiotherapist works with another.
The Physiotherapist is in charge of organizing the therapies for all patients. He has many years of experience working with different aged patients with various syndromes and he is very liked in his work too. Most of the cases in physiotherapy are cerebral palsy, down’s syndrome, injuries from accidents, hemiplegic or flat feet.
The Physiotherapist works with almost 10 patients a day and always teaches the parents to continue the therapy at home.
We also do Speech Therapy and have increasing numbers of patients coming to us for that. Our Speech Therapist works mostly with school aged kids who have difficulties pronouncing certain letters or sounds using different techniques from a facial massage to different repetitive exercises. The objective is to improve communication and fluency through positive reinforcement.
Early Stimulation
What is our “Early Stimulation Program?”
Early Stimulation is a service for babies and toddlers (2 months – 3 years old) who have been diagnosed as disabled / special needs / or suffering from a clinical syndrome with the intention of giving them the best start in life to improve their conditions and give them the opportunity to develop to their maximum potential in life.
What are the Top Objectives of this Service?
- To help the patients have a greater chance of developing skills in life – Medical communities and success stories prove that children under the age of 5 who receive early stimulation and therapies for their disabilities, special needs or clinical syndromes give them a higher likelihood of developing their full potential in life.
- To support the primary carer through hands on experience and training, and encouraging them to work with the patient outside of the service offered by Asociacion Yanapasun.
Details of the Service
The Early Stimulation Program started in September 2016 when we first re-opened the center as Asociacion Yanapasun.
Patients and their primary carers come to the centre early in the morning and leave the children until the afternoon. During this time our Teachers give early stimulation therapies to the babies and do different activities with them. The kids learn how to respect the rules of the Centre and learn something new every day. They also receive a warm meal a day. Patients that require extra physiotherapy have the opportunity to receive a session from the Physiotherapist in a separate part of the center. Sometimes the primary carer is invited to learn, observe and practice various techniques that can be done outside of the centre at home.
Full patient records are kept up to date including details of regular evaluations to monitor the progress of each patient as well as the effectiveness of the therapist and the service as a whole. At the moment we have 15 babies included in this group that come to the Center every day.
Psychology Services
What is our Psychology Service?
Our Psychology service is offered for families in the valley that might have faced some challenges in their life or need someone to talk to. The service is offered mostly for the patients that are already included in another services in the Center such as for patients that have had accidents and need emotional support, parents who have problems with their children in our Early Stimulation Program, children that have learning issues in their school etc.
What are the Top Objectives of the Service?
- To offer support for the patients that are included in our Center as well for their families. To find out the reasons behinds the problems, to understand them and find a solution for them.
- To offer a secure place to have someone professional to talk to and find another perspective for the challenges in the patient’s life and tools to improve these issues in the future.
- To offer workshops for parents about challenging situation with their children in the Early Stimulation Program.
Details of the Service
At the moment our Psychologist works 3 times a week but we would like to extend this service for a full time position in the future. Our Psychologist has about 15 patients a week which is a great number but there are more people interested in this service too.
Also our Psychologist works with children with autism and we are aiming to expand this service in able to provide even more help for families who have children with autism.
Future Projects
A Social Service – It’s important to include a Social Assistant into our team to study some of the cases even further and follow up some of the patients after finishing their therapy programs with us. Also we would like the Social Assistant to evaluate each new family that enters into the program and visit their houses. This service would help recover the family to the point where they can sustain themselves with personal hygiene, an income, food and nutrition and a home. This service will require a full or part time local professional with international volunteers.
Young Adults Group Program – this program is for young adults with disabilities and special needs. To bring them together and give them the opportunity to learn or to practice various fine and gross motor skills as well as life skills. The founders all have experience with a similar program already and have many contacts that would be part of this program. This program will require a half time local employee to run the young adult day center as well as local and international volunteers.
Fundraise – a half or full time fundraiser to contact local companies and organizations to improve the collaboration together with them and look for funds for the Center. Start a sponsor program for certain patients.
TO BE CONTINUED…
