Welcome to Paediatric Physiotherapy at East Lancashire Hospitals
Who are we?
The Paediatric Physiotherapy team at East Lancashire Hospitals provides a service to children and young people living in Burnley, Pendle, Rossendale, the Ribble Valley and Blackburn with Darwen who have a registered GP within this area.
We are a team of Physiotherapists, Assistant Practitioners, Advanced Therapy Assistants and Clinical support workers who are specialised in working with children and young people.
Using a family centred care approach, our vision is to support the child and young person alongside their parents and carers to achieve their goals, maximising their gross motor potential through activities which are engaging and motivating.
We support children, young people and their families with a long term diagnosis to become involved in their care and treatment so that they are confident in managing their needs. We encourage therapy to become part of everyday life, building it into their daily home and school routines to promote their lifelong health and wellbeing.
Learn more about us
Triage
Once we have received your child/young person's referral, a member of the team will telephone you to find out more details about the reason they have been referred to physiotherapy. From here, we will understand more about the type of appointment they need, how quickly they will be seen and who is best to assess them. We may also be able to give you advice over the phone to help treat the symptoms whilst you wait to be seen.
We can offer video appointments or face to face depending on why your child/young person has been referred to physio. Based on whether we need to look and observe them or carry out specific hands-on test, your triage physiotherapist will be able to advise you on what type of appointment is best for your child.
Initial appointment
Initial appointments last longer, taking anywhere between 30 to 60 minutes and again will be dependent on the reason your child/young person has been referred. At the beginning of the assessment, the physiotherapist will likely ask you lots of questions to understand more about your child/young person's challenges/ pain before they go on to carry out their physical assessment.
During their physical assessment, the physiotherapist will likely observe the way in which your child moves and performs large movement activities (gross motor skills) such as sitting, standing, walking, running and jumping etc. They may want to look at their posture, feel how much movement they have in their joints, how strong their muscles are or if there is anything that may be causing them pain. It is useful if your child/young person could attend their appointment in lose fitting clothing or bring shorts and t-shirts with them to change into. On occasion, the physiotherapist may ask them to remove their t-shirt so we can observe them in more detail.
Sometimes assessments may need to take place over several appointments depending on how your child/young person interacts with the assessment. We want to gain your child/young person's trust and give them a positive experience of physiotherapy so therefore will not push them if they are finding the assessment difficult.
Follow up appointments
Follow up appointments usually last between 20 and 30 minutes however, dependent on your child/ young person's needs, they may on occasion, last up to 60 minutes. Your physiotherapist will be able to tell you how long your follow up appointments will take following your initial appointment.
During follow up appointments your physiotherapist will provide an individualised treatment plan likely consisting of stretches, strengthening exercises and activities to help your child/young person to achieve their goals or potential. Often, we will include parents in our sessions to teach you how to help or support them at home.
Who are we?
Paediatric Physiotherapists work with babies, children and young people, up until the age of when you leave school or college.
We have a special understanding of how babies and children learn how to do big movements such as, rolling, crawling, standing, walking, running and jumping. You may here these being called Gross Motor Skills.
We understand how bones and muscles change as we grow and get taller.
We understand how our brains are very important, as not only do they help us to become learn how to read and write, they help us learn how to crawl and walk, and jump and dance, by sending lots and lots of messages to our muscles telling them how and when to work. Sometimes these messages can get a bit mixed up and the wrong message goes to the wrong muscle. This may mean that you cannot move in the way you want to.
Why am I coming to see a Physiotherapist?
There are many reasons why you might come to see a Physiotherapist, you may:
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Be finding it tricky to learn how to do some movements such as sitting up or walking,
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You may find running, jumping or balancing difficult.
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You may have fallen over and hurt yourself, or broken a bone.
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You may have had an operation and need some help to get moving again
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You may be having some pain in your muscles or joints from growing.
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Your muscles may be weak and you are struggling to do certain things.
What do Physiotherapists do?
Your Physio will firstly listen to you to see what is hurting you or what it is your finding difficult. They will then have a good look at you. They may ask you to put some shorts and T shirts on, or even take you top of so we can see how your body is moving. They will often feel your muscles and joints by bending and stretching your arms and legs, - this should not hurt you, but may tickle!!! Then they may ask you to do little challenges to see how you sit up walk or run. This will help us to work out what it we need to do to help.
We will ask you what it is that you want to be able to do and then we will give you some things to do to help you achieve your goals, we will try to do this around games and activities you enjoy doing.
Things we might do in physio:
- Stretches to help keep your muscles long as you grow and so that you can bend and straighten your arms and legs.
- Exercises to help your muscles be as strong as they can to help you sit up, stand or walk.
- We may ask you to do little challenges to help you learn how to learn new movements or to help you balance.
- Sometimes we will give you some special equipment to help you do your exercises or stretches.
Your physio will work with you to help you learn how to do your stretches and exercises, we will also teach your mum and dad (or whoever looks after you) how to do the exercises, we may even teach your teachers so they can help you in school.
What do I have to do?
Your physio will do their best to help you achieve the most you can, but you will also need to do bit to help. Just like a dentist checks your teeth and helps you look after them, you must brush your teeth twice a day to keep them clean, or like a doctor will give you medicine if you're feeling unwell, you must take your medicine several times a day to get better.
You will need to do the stretches and exercises your physio gives you.
Useful things
Referral to the service is made via our Single Point of Access, Patediatric Physiotherapy, Pendle Community Hospital, Leeds Road, Nelson, BB9 9SZ.
We can be contacted on 01282 803587 or paeds.physiotherapy@elht.nhs.uk. If you need to contact a member of our team or your named physiotherapist, we ask you to contact us on this number and not the site in which you have been seen as our physiotherapists are not in the office to receive calls due to treating patients.
Please note, this is not a clinical site for Paediatric Physiotherapy.
We accept referrals from:
- Consultants
- GPs
- Members of the Multi-Disciplinary Team
- Education
- Social Care
- Self Referral (please find a link to our referral form here)