SDR Rehab block

We offer 3-day, 5-day and 10 day intensive blocks of physiotherapy treatment pre and post surgery. We will ask you to send us your pre-operative video. If your child was able to swim pre-operatively or expects to achieve swimming post-operatively, and this is one of their goals, we may advise some of your sessions be with our special needs swimming teacher who will be in the pool with us.

It is important that your child can be active against gravity post-operatively so our gym sessions are very focussed on muscle strengthening and functional activity. Our paediatric physiotherapists have a background in orthopaedic paediatric physiotherapy and our director headed the physiotherapy orthopaedic team at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital before working in neurology.

We use specific Aquaepps® techniques in the hydrotherapy pool. These techniques were developed by our director Dr Heather Epps. All our aquatic physiotherapists are trained in these rehabilitative techniques, and Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitatory (PNF) by Dr Epps. We also use Aquastretch, Watsu®, Halliwick, Tai Chi and other approaches and principles where appropriate.

If your child is suffering muscle soreness we can also offer pilates or yoga if appropriate in place of one of their gym sessions on our 5 and 10 day courses.

Day 1 involves an individual assessment in the morning with our physiotherapist and goals to be agreed. There is a meet and greet session to introduce you to the rest of your group and show you the pool facilities after lunch before the afternoon session takes place in the hydrotherapy pool.

If you attend the 3 or 5 day treatment block you will receive one hour in the gym and 1 hour in the hydrotherapy pool (includes changing time) with our physiotherapy team working on your specific goals, training parents and carers if requested as a mixture of individual and group work.

If you attend the 10 day treatment block you will have one gym and two pool sessions with our physiotherapy team on day 1 to day 4 of the second week, as we would expect your child’s stamina and exercise tolerance to have increased.

If you attend the 5 or 10 day blocks of treatment then your last day will include an individual session to review your achievements, provide your report for your team at home, and hand over your programmes for you to continue at home and/or in your local or school pool. After your final session in the hydrotherapy pool we have a goodbye, achievements and certificates ceremony.

LHAP Treatment Packages