GONGE Air Board and Hypermobility

Hypermobility: Between 10 and 30% of the population is hypermobile, more females than males. Hypermobility is hereditary. The term „hypermobile” is used to describe a joint in the body that is more flexible than normal. The connective tissue is often softer and more elastic than in people whose mobility is normal. Half of the people who are hypermobile will experience dysfunction at some point in their lives. Hypermobility is therefore principally regarded as a condition rather than an illness.

A child who has hypermobile joints may experience one or more of the following difficulties:

• Joint pain
• Luxation (dislocation)
• Fatigues rapidly in physical play and motor activities
• Delayed motor skills development
• Impaired balance
• Seems weak and may find it difficult to mobilise energy.

If a child experiences difficulties due to hypermobility, they will need professional advice and training from a competent practitioner. Children with hypermobility have a special need to be physically active and use their body. Strong muscles help to keep the joint in place, prevent luxation and ameliorate pain. It is especially important to strengthen and exercise the small muscles located close to the joints.
Young children are generally agile and motorically active. Older children may have a tendency to be inactive, especially if they are hypermobile and experience physical dysfunction associated with movement. It is crucial that these children keep moving and are motivated to find pleasure in movement.

Proper weight training is not advisable for children but it is possible to train muscular tissue around the child‘s joints using the child’s own weight. Joint strengthening exercises should focus on moving at the centre of the joint’s movement, and avoid extending the joint to extreme positions, in which it flexes or extends excessively.
Hypermobile children must ensure that their joints remain strong throughout life, it is important that the training is playful and motivating.

Giant Air Board: Giant Air Board appeals to play and motivates the child to exercise and strengthen their muscles. The board is inflatable so it is easy to adjust it to challenge the child – the more inflated, the greater the challenge. When the grey side of the board faces downward, the feet are well supported. Older children and adults must use a great deal of strength to perform exercises on the grey side with only a little air in the Air Board Giant.

CASE

Tom is 11 years old. He finds his general hypermobility irritating. His motor skills are inadequate and he finds it difficult to keep up with his classmates. His motor skills have always been less developed than those of his peers. Tom enjoys playing computer games and spends hours on sedentary pursuits. When Tom has to go for a walk with his family and their dog, he complains that his legs are painful after only about a couple of hundred metres. The situation has gradually worsened, to the extent that Tom now refuses to take part in motor activities of any kind. He prefers to be excused from sports at school, and he stands and watches the other children playing in the school yard.

His mother recalls that, when he was small, he always sat on the floor playing with cars. On the playground, he preferred to play in the sandbox. He is hesitant. He has never been able to walk in a straight line, climb trees or play football.Michael often fell and bumped into things, when he was little.

More recently, Michael has enjoyed swimming and running. He has also done weight training at a fitness centre. Although he loves sport and movement, his balance remains impaired. He lacks the courage to take part in cycle training. When testing Michael, I find that he has severe reactive balance problems. His arms flail wildly, when he is about to lose his balance.

Michael and I agree to three exercise sessions, in which he will practise using the underlying skills he needs to learn before he can learn to ride a bicycle. Between these sessions, Michael does a few daily exercises at home. Michael’s training sessions take place at 14-day intervals. After six weeks, we will begin to teach him to ride a bicycle.

We use hilltops in the training sessions and at home. Michael must practise walking as slowly as he can on a trail made of five hilltops of different heights. If he cannot keep his balance and if his foot touches the floor to prevent him from falling, he has walked too slowly. At every session, we write down how long it takes him to walk the trail with the five hilltops. To begin with, Michael can only keep his balance if he moves fast along the hilltops trail (7 seconds). Slowly but surely, he learns to move more slowly until finally he can take as long as 35 seconds.

Michael now feels he is ready to meet the challenge of learning to cycle. We have a chat to remind him that speed makes cycling easier – especially in the beginning. After three cycle training sessions, Michael is off on his own. He enjoys the sense of freedom. He also enjoys being able to transport himself to and from school and leisure activities as it saves time.

Giant Air Board and hypermobility

CASE