impairments. Children with limited verbal skills are assessed for augmentative and alternative communication devices.
Your child may be scheduled for inpatient or outpatient therapy with any or all of our therapists. Therapy may also be scheduled on a regular basis or following a surgery.
Your child's first appointment will start with an evaluation to decide where their therapy needs may be. Our therapists are able to care for a wide variety of orthopedic and neurologic conditions.
Our therapy program provides a wide range of services, including activity-based rehabilitation, exercise programs, adaptive sports, aquatic therapy and animal-assisted therapy. These activities help build strength, increase social interaction, and build confidence and independence for children.
If your child needs assistive tools or devices, such as communication devices, standers, movement or bathroom aids, our therapists will teach you and your child on how to use them properly.
Shriners Children's patients often describe our staff members as part of their family. This is awesome, because our therapists work hard to involve the entire family in each child's rehabilitation. When the whole family helps a child with their therapy, there is a much quicker rate of success.
Equipment That May Be Used:
- Body-weight-supported treadmill training
- Upper and lower functional electrical stimulation cycles
- H200 wireless hand rehab system
- Aqua-therapy pool
- Augmentative and alternative communication
- AlterG treadmill
- Planar seating system
Advanced Therapies, Advanced Medicine
Activity-based rehabilitation strategies may include body-weight-supported manual treadmill training, robotic treadmill training on the Lokomat, and functional electrical stimulation (FES) cycling.
Management of youth with tetraplegic spinal cord injuries may include FES, reconstructive surgery and assistive technology.
A motion analysis center assists in evaluation of gait (how a child walks) in youth with spinal cord injuries who are able to walk.
Wheelchair users are assessed with pressure mapping and wheelchair propulsion (how a child moves their wheelchair) is evaluated by the unique combination of motion analysis and SmartWheel analysis.
Spinal Cord Injury Research
Our spinal cord injury program includes a strong emphasis on research. Shriners Children's researchers are committed to providing care and rehabilitation services that strengthen children’s self-esteem while promoting independence.
Shriners Children's research teams hope to find a way to help children paralyzed by spinal cord injury and disease to walk again. While scientific investigators seek ways to repair the spinal cord, our researchers develop novel therapies to prevent damage to spinal cord function caused by inflammation that may occur after immunizations and viral infections, or as a component of diseases such as multiple sclerosis.
Some of our research studies have been on quality of life issues, long-term outcomes, and the impact of pediatric spinal cord injury on the family. Knowledge gained from these studies may improve clinical practices and improve the lives of patients with spinal cord injuries.
Approximately 12,000 cases of spinal cord injury are reported in the United States each year.
How We Support Your Child’s Total Health and Well-Being
Families and patients say that Shriners Children’s feels like home to them, and it's no wonder to us. We know that a child's needs go beyond the physical. Our care teams support their social, emotional and developmental health with patient programs and activities.
A few examples include:
- Child life
- Music therapy
- Pet therapy
- School and community re-entry program
- Specialty camps
- Therapeutic recreation
Not all programs are available at every location. Contact your child’s care manager or any member of your child’s care team to learn more.
Shriners Children's has helped us to cope better and feel more comfortable with Memphis’s spinal cord injury. I felt I would never feel confident handling her care on my own. But after being here, I feel like