They say the third time is a charm! I think we’ve been planning to take the “old Peds course” and now the new, remastered “Human Evolution” course to Alpine PT in Seattle WA three times, and in October, we finally did it, barring surgery and COVID! From my perspective, it was well worth the wait. Christopher Murhpy, Jeremiah Ferguson, Eli Zygmuntowicz, and Eva Bilo were the most gracious hosts and hostess. It was so great to have met you after hearing so many good things about you and your clinic.
We took a journey through the development of a human, highlighting critical sensory motor milestones, reviewed the literature supporting why these human developmental principles are important and connected it all with a description and application of 7 specific developmental processes. With over 100 videos of clinicial application through the lifespan, we were “in the clinic” with 8 patient cases for all of Day #2, from 15 months old to 70 years old.
We had an important conversation about the overwhelming benefits of crawling on hands and knees, and how important this skill is to painfree, grounded, postural development and walking as we age. This skill (at any age, really) brings sensory attention to all of our bases of support (right and left, front and back), helps to use and to integrate primitive tonic neck reflexes, provides a sense of upper extremity self-referencing on the maturation of cephalic-caudal independence, allows us to feel a grounded sense of gravtiy in a primitive form of forward locomotor movement, AND to explore our worlds from a new visual persepctive for cognitive processing! And that’s only one of the 10 milestones we recognized.
A couple of the attendees came up to me and said, “As you were talking, I was writing patients names down because this course applies to so many of them”. We might not be crawling for locomotion as adults, but as we are cleaning out a bottom cabinet, gardening on hands and knees, pushing a grocery cart in the grocery store, rolling over in bed, lowering ourselves to play with our pets or children, or walking upstairs (or downstairs backwards – WHAT?), we are using the skills that were hopefully laid down in the developmental years. If these skills were not wired developmentally, or if an injury or insult changed that developmental fortification, there’s a good chance one might be pursuing PT, which is why your patients might be in your clinic. This course was created to help us all better understand these cross-referenced connections for better patient outcomes.
I hope to see you in one of 2 live stream offerings in January or September of 2024, or maybe I’ll get to shake your hand in person in Malvern PA in April. Thanks again to the fine folks at Alpine PT, and to everyone who attended, nodded, questioned, and participated. Your presence was enriching to me and to the group’s learning. I appreciate you all!
