The Goderich Signal-Star, 1976-12-16, Page 1p
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Deborah Scott's handicap is confined to the motor control,
section ,of her brain and has in no way affected her other
faculties. Her sight and hearing are excellent ami recent.
testing at the Institute for the Achievement_ of Human
Potential indicated she ares•-oven_,aJle to read. Part of
Deborah's day involves further development of these skills
through the use of flash cards. Left to right are volunteers
Connie Osborne, Doris Murison and Sharon Moore: (staff
photo)
es
•
With mother manipulating her head and volunteers Sharon •
Moore, left, and Connie Osborne, right, co-ordinating her
limbs, Deborah goes through one of her patterning sessions.
The -patterning • exercises are carried out for five minutes
every half hour. (staff photo)
THURSDA, DECEMBER 16', 1976
SECOND SECTION
Deborah's Christmas
•
Two. hundred. and . fifty Goderich
volunteers have be•gun,w,.hat will likely ,
be for them the greatest 'human un-
dertaking oftheir lives. For the center of: -
that Undertaking, Deborah Joyce Scott,
the project holds out the chance for a full
and normal life.
Without the volunteers and the project -
known asp p'atternirig" theme--is-little
chance. that Deborah's. future contains a
great deal more than a wheelchair. The
bright-eyed seven-year-old . is Cerebral -
palsied. "
Deborah's story begins; in Ireland a
few months before her birth. Her mother'
and father, Robert and Joyce Scott (now
of 314 Gibbons Street, Goderich), went
out to visit friends. It was discovered
later that the Koine in which they spent
the evening had .been infected by Ger-
man Measles: The measle • virus at-
tacked the placenta:thepre-natal-food
and oxygen source for Deborah, causing
brain damage.
Upd'n discovering that the pregnant
Mrs. Scott . had,. been .exposed to the
dangerous virus, the couple contacted
their doctor but were assured that ail
; was well. Nor was there any indication
at birth of the damage which had been
done, and the 'doctors,continued .to
assure the Scotts durinthe next `six
months that there was no need for
concern.
Mrs. Scott knew otherwise. Right from
the start, .she explains; feeding proved a
-problem: Before long,: the spastic con-
dition became obvious, .and in the end'
Deborah's condition was" diagnosed &s
Cerebral -palsy.
When Deborah was three •years old,
the Scotts left their native Ireland and
came to Canada. With a view to the
troubled situation in Ireland, Canadian
immigration officials admitted the child
on; compassionate grounds under a
"permit of entry" as opposed to the
regular "landed immigrant" status.
On their..drrival in Canada the Scotts
contacted the Toronto and London
Crippled Children's Centers: Mr. Scott
notes that the staff members were
"wonderful people and most Con-
siderate". They gave 'the little girl
another full screening and confirmed the
problem as prenatal brain injury, but
seemed unable to do Blush more.
Then, through friends. and newspaper
stories, the family began hearing of_.a:
center calling itself the "Institute for`the
Achievement of, Human Potential". By..:
this time, Deborah was five years old.
The Scotts read all material they could
find about the Philadelphia based
Institute and its programs and then
decided to contact the organization,
They wrote asking if the institute would
consider Deborah and with that letter
included a brief'history of the little girl.
The response was affirmative, but also
informed the family that Deborah Would
have to wait ber turn on • an 18 -month
waiting list.
When the time cavae, the Institute
. asked that, the Scotts come as a family,
Deborah Would be•given a wide range of `.
tests and ,the program would be .ex-
plained in detail. If the results of the
testing :warranted it, and if the Scotts
werestill willing, Deborah would he
admitted to the program.
NEW HOPE
During urin the early 1950's.Dr. Robert Jay,
Doman, a . physician specializing in
physical medici:iie; Glen Doman,
director of the Institutes for the
Achievement of Human Potential; and
Dr." .Carl H. Delacato, a specialist in
education, began to find themselves
more and more -dissatisfied :with.resuLts�_,
achieved for brain -injured children
--throughtraditional methods. Massage,
whirlpool baths, walking frames,
crutches, braces, wheelchairs, and other
methods of physical therapy just did not
seern to be achieving acceptable' results,
An analysis of the records of 100 cases
showed that barely . one third . had
achieved moderate advances. Another
third had just held their own and a large
number of youngsters under treatment
had actually lost ground-:
The three men also made another
evaluation. Of brain injured children
who had. been kept at home with vir-
tually no rehabilitation training, many
had made gains. Those youngsters had
been left to crawl or creep as best they
could. Some crawlers (the forward
motion with the° tummy touching the..
floor) had managed to learn to creep
(forward motion on the hands and
knees). A few of the creepers had even
learned to stand.
Doman, Delacato and Doman even felt
that some of those youngsters had made
progressin excess of others who lad
been receiving conventional treatment.
The key would /be the' discovery of
'why' these advances had developed.
In 1957 they intensified their search for
a method of treating 'not the visible
results of brain injury, but the injured
brain itself. °
- They already _knew that in normal
children, every successful attempt at
crawling or creeping involved sending
sensory nerve messages to the area of
the brain which• goner --ns these
movements. With repeated success, the
brain gradually builds up movement
controlling circuits, and through that
establishes •a -.reflex pattern that in the
end allows the child to co-ordinate
'movements without conscious planning.
The question was how to apply that
process to the injured brain?
Dr. Temple ''Fay, professor i of
neurosurgery .at Temple University
School of Medicine, had suggested
through his work that brain injuries did
not involve the destruction of all cells in
the injured area. If that was the case, it
Was reasoned, it might be possible to
activate the millions of surviving cells to
function in place of the damaged or dead
ones.
Glenn Doman admits that it was
"jcrmping into the blue sky of theory and
hypothesis" but the Institute group
decided to devise a system of patterning
movements.dt With those movements,
they would manipulate the limbs• -of the.
patient and carry hire orhe°through the
patterns of movement normally the
responsibility of the damaged level of his
- brain"
- If the theory was correct the repetition
of these patterns, over and over and
over, would eventually cause the brain
to receive the sensory rnes,sages fed to it. '
After a study to establish the patterns
necessary and mast likely to succeed
and an . exam; of patterns
'.guaranteed not tc. ;;iso injury- pain,:,
g J.y .
76 children representing every major
type' of brain injury. and every level of
retardation were enrolled in a. test
program:;-.
..The youngsters were put through
"patterning" for five minutes at a time,
fo[tr :times -a-day;-seven- days a week. -
Every two months they were assessed
and assigned more advanced patterning
exercises.
After two years it was found that not
one child had lost ground, 10 remained at
the same level, 66 had made advances,
17 .were walking normally and of those
two who at thestart of the experiment
had been unable to turn over by them-
selves, were now a)5%e to walk.
Although they had received no speech
therapy, 59 per cent of those who could
siness as usual
not speak at all at the start ofthe
program began to talk.'
It was founda bit later that, because of • .
their relative immobility, many brain
injured children fail to develop the deep
breathing habits essential to supply
adequate oxygen.. to the brain.' To
overcome this, a small plastic maskwas
developed to be worn over .the child's
---noseand mouth for_ 60 seconds during
each waking hour. Because the child is
forced to rebreathe its own exhaled
breath, the carbon dioxide level of the
blood is temporarily raised and the
respiratory centers in the brain are
stimulated to a reflex of deeper and
more regular breathing.
STILL CONTROVERSIAL
And so the system of "patterning" was
born. But as a treatment,or even a
theory, it remains controversial.
Because brain injured children often do ;rot develop proper breathing techniques the
Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential. has designed a plastic mask which the
patient wears for 60 seconds each hour. The mask causes Deborah to rebreath her, own
carbon dioxide which triggers the brain to enuse deeper breathing and results in more
oxygen going to the brain. (staff photo)
Many physicians concur . with a
•, statement issued by the American
Academy, for Cerebral 'Palsy, that pat- ••
terring;has' net been proven scien-
tifically. ,Other physicians believe that
'*patterning has substantial therapeutic
value and some, in fact, have applied it.
to their own brain -injured children.
Deborah's parents fully recognize this.
controversy and the, questions
surrounding the -program. They a -r -e; -the_
first to point out that no guarantees are
attached, but Mr. Scott observes, "I
really have two alternatives, I can buy a
nice 'chrome plated wheel*chair .... or
we can give Deborah a chance:" •
Before they ever heard of tate
Institutes for the Achievement of Human`
Potential, the . Scotts had instinctively
turned their back on -wheelchairs and
opted toward giving Deborah an op-
portunity for physical development.
Rather than tying: her securely in .a
wheelchair and propping her in front of
. the television set, Deborah was placed•
on the floor to move about to the best of
her ability. Mrs. Scott recalls the hours
which stretched into: days as Deborah
repeatedly attempted to climb atop a
' low box. She would make the ascent, and
then fal1.off. But in the end she mastered
it.
Another. device was to place a box of
'chocolates on a couch at one end of the
room while Deborah was at the other..
After'a lengthy struggle she would reach
the box and receive her reward. Then. •
the box would be moved to a chair at the
opposite end of the room, and the
exercise would begin anew.
Even asa baby in her crib, Deborah
was presented with an ;opportunity to
learn to control her movements.
"I tied a number of stuffed' toys at
various places and heights above her,"
Mrs. Scott explains, "so that when she
moved her hands and arms they would
come in contact with something rather
than being merely undirected waving." •
HELP IN GODERICH
The Scotts point to three events which
have allowed DebG-rah to take big'ste
forward in her. development.' First was
her admission' to the regular class at
Tinkertown. Nursery School despite her
handicap. Second was trips to :the
swimming pool three or four times per
week during the sumtner under the care
of Beryl Harper, and third,the
programs provided by Queen Eliaibeth
School.
These opportunities, Mr. and Mrs.
Scott explain, have not only provided
their daughter with -the opportunity to
become involved in a varied pr'og'ram of
physical and intellectual activity, but
_(perhaps even more important) have
provided her the social contact so
necessary to a well rounded develop-
ment, .
"Bonnie Graham's work with Deborah
Story by Ron Shaw
Photos by Dave Sykes