Virtual therapy visits keep KidsAbility open and helping
Agency that provides services to children with special needs moved appointments online
KITCHENER — Lydia Briand’s first exercise is the “bear stand-up,” where she stands up by pushing both hands on a stack of books.
The five-year-old Kitchener girl can’t contain her excitement when she manages the feat.
“Did it!” Lydia screams.
Her KidsAbility physiotherapist Catherine Nyman is happy, too, but pushes Lydia to do the exercise another time with less books to help her up.
“Try it again, feet apart,” Nyman instructs. “I want you to do it one more time and I want to make it tricky.”
The session continues with hands-on help from Lydia’s father, Israel Briand. Nyman is the encouraging voice coming through the computer screen since she can’t meet her young client in person.
KidsAbility transitioned to virtual appointments after having to close down its sites due to COVID-19 restrictions. Therapists use a secure video conferencing platform for health care organizations.
While Nyman said there’s no substitute for in-person visits, she said a lot can be accomplished with the virtual visits compared to email or telephone as they used at the start of the closure.
“The video has just brought it up to a new level,” Nyman said. “We’re able to work together.”
She can see what they’re doing and give useful feedback, even helping to properly adjust equipment. Nyman watched Lydia walking on the family’s treadmill to see how she was stepping.
“She’s getting stronger. She’s not losing out because she’s still getting her weekly session,” Nyman said.
Lydia was born premature and was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Surgery last summer reduced much of the spasticity in her legs, but now she needs to strengthen and stretch those muscles.
She’s still much faster at crawling but her walking is improving, especially now that her physiotherapy is continuing after being briefly sidetracked by the pandemic.
“She was just reverting back,” Briand said. “We feel like we’re getting back to her walking more.”
He was pleased the virtual visits were set up so quickly, although he joked the virtual sessions are a lot more physical for the parents. At first both Lydia’s parents were needed to wrangle the active girl.
“When Catherine is there, she does her exercises way better than when it’s just me,” Briand said. “Having a face-to-face interaction makes a huge difference.”
All of KidsAbility’s core rehabilitation and autism therapists are moving to virtual visits, sometimes a few joining a session when needed. They have hosted virtual support groups, and next week are rolling out bedtime stories, parent education groups, hangouts for kids and weekly “ask a therapist” sessions.
Linda Kenny, chief executive officer, said they didn’t waste time exploring innovative ways to continue providing services to children and youth with special needs.
The main goal is “as much as possible, prevent kids from losing skills they’ve worked really hard to gain.”
There are some challenges. Schools are helping those families who didn’t have access to equipment and internet, and KidsAbility is working on navigating language barriers when an interpreter is required.
“For some families, they just can’t take on one more thing,” Kenny said.
She anticipates virtual visits will change how KidsAbility delivers services when things are back to normal, perhaps offering an option to avoid missed visits if a parent can’t get to the building.
Nyman is also pleased with the new venue to keep therapy going.
“It was so awesome for the kids to see me and me to see the kids,” she said.
Normally she ends her meeting with Lydia by reading a picture book about a dog named Rudy with a brace on his leg. During this week’s virtual visit, Lydia eagerly read out all the things the dog can still do, like eat ice cream and give his friend a kiss.
“Now she gets to keep doing that,” Nyman said.