Balance & coordination summary

Physical therapy

﻿Hello there, my name is Sophie Brazier. I'm a children's physio therapist. Thank you for joining me today for our lesson. So we are in unit five and this is lesson 14. And that means we're at the end of our unit on Balance and coordination. So if you've joined me for all 14 lessons, then well done you and thank you for taking the time to do that. And I've hope you found them useful. So today we're going to be looking at a summary lesson. So we'll have a little bit of a look and a recap of balance and coordination, and then we'll end with a nice game. And you just need yourself and a parent or carer to play the game with at the end, they'll need to be doing the music. So you need to be somewhere where you can place some music. And if you've got siblings or you're playing with friends, then that might be a good idea as well. So if you get yourself ready and then we can get going today. I would just like to give you a little message from our team. We as therapists have tried to think of the best way to continue to support children, young people and their families. So you may be watching this as a child by yourself, or you might be with a parent or carer. We will be exploring topic areas that we regularly provide advice and support on across all ages and abilities. And each lesson we will aim to give you some ideas and activities that can be carried out either at home or in school. You may already have specific programmes that you're using or advice that has been given to you by your child's school or therapist. So please make sure that you're using any information I'm giving you alongside anything you already have. And if you do have any questions or would like help tailoring this to their needs, then please make sure you get in contact with your local therapy service. So what I'll do first is I will go through a little bit of a recap about what balance is, and then a recap about coordination, and then we'll end with an activity. Okay. So let's just recap on what is balance. So remember it's about you being able to remain upright and steady. And how does this happen and how does it help? So we get information from our eyes, our joints, our muscles and skin. So receptors in these areas about where our body is in space. So we get this feedback to our body. Our bodies can plan the movement around that feedback and from our inner ear as to how our head is moving. So all these processes happen really automatically within our bodies, which makes our bodies pretty amazing things. And our body uses this information to change the muscle activity and the muscle tone. So it's almost like a response to that information they're getting, then the muscle system and the balance system can make those adaptations. And this is known as your equilibrium reactions. And it also, it can help change with posture. So moving body parts to keep you in the middle. And this is known as your writing reaction. So this for example, could be, if you're walking down the street and there's something in the way, or you without noticing trip on something, and if you have got good balance reactions, you might not fall over. So our balance can work with other systems to help with our movement control. And why is it important? So your balance provides the body with a stability to maintain postures and also move. So it helps keep us steady when we want to move a body part such as our head, and one of your limbs say your arm or legs. And it keeps us in a position for better daily activities. So all the things you do every single day involve balance of some form. So when you're sitting, when you're standing, when you're walking, when you're moving. So an example is when you're eating and drinking, you need to be able to balance your body, to be able to then use your arms. You need to be able to see things. If you're watching television, if you're watching the board in class, if you are at a game you're watching something to do with sport, and you're needing to turn your head to follow the game. For example, a game of tennis. If you're sat down watching it, you need to both keep your body balanced but your head moves differently and your body stays still. And also for listening as well. And the last two they're communicating and learning. So having your body in a good place to be able to then use your voice, and also for being able to have all those things in place for your balance and for your posture and everything working together. So that then you're in a good place to be able to learn. And balance prevents us from falling over and from injuring ourselves, which is a good thing. So let's just go back and see if you can remember about the different types of balance. So there's your sitting balance when you need to be able to keep upright and steady in a sitting position as your standing balance. So when you're keeping your body upright and steady in a standing position, then there is static and dynamic balance. So static means still. So this is your ability to remain steady in a fixed position. So when you don't want lots of movement but maybe your limbs need to move around their stable point. And then dynamic, which means movement or moving. And this is your ability to remain steady when your body is moving. So not still, but you don't want to be moving all over the place and be really wobbly, but your balance can help you because it can make your movement more efficient. Okay. So did everyone understand about balance? So I think we should move onto coordination now. So what is coordination as a recap? So coordination allows fluid, but stable movement whilst performing everyday tasks. So bilateral coordination, you might have heard of that word. Sounds a bit funny, doesn't it? It is when you are able to use both sides of your body together. So this could be both sides doing the same action. So at the same time, so almost like a mirror. So for example, clapping when you're doing it like this or one after the other. So at different times, so pedalling a bike. So if these were my legs, I'm pedalling, but they're not going at the same time. They're doing one after the other. Or there are some actions when one arm might be doing something like if you pat the top of your head and you rub your tummy, that can be one arm is doing one thing. So your top arm is patting and your bottom arm is going in a circle oxygen. So you can try that. And that is quite a difficult thing to coordinate. And you need smooth coordination of movement to be able to complete any task well. So balance and coordination work together to help you with your movement. So we have done this activity before at the beginning of the unit. I think it was lesson two, but I do think it's a nice activity to finish with because it can be a lot of fun. And also what I want you to do this time is think about all the balanced things we've tried, and maybe you can try some of those positions or poses while you're doing the statues. So it's musical statues, and I want you to try and make some of those cool balancing shapes. So play this game now with some music, and ask a parent or carer to stop it without you knowing. And you've got to move around the room making different shapes where you're balancing and using different coordination. So really think about your positions. And maybe if you can try some of the poses we've learned in the unit and freeze when the music stops. And I want you to think about your balance in these positions. So if you pause the video now you can have a go at the activity and then please rejoin me afterwards and we'll have a look at some other options. So let's just think about that activity a little bit more. Remember if this is tricky and standing, you can modify the activity so you can do it in a seated position and you could move your arms and legs so that we'll be looking at your sitting balance. You can also make it harder by extending the activity. So what I'd like you to do is make some big shapes with your body and test your balance. So really, kind of challenge your balance in this if you're able to. And maybe you can make it harder by moving a bit faster. So you've got to change position and you can only stay in one position for a few seconds. And the last one there, if you want to increase and make it a little bit harder, play the game for a bit longer, and you will probably get your heart rate up a little bit if you're moving around. So if you pause the video now you can have a go at those options and then rejoin me afterwards for the end of the lesson. How did you find that activity? I hope you had some fun playing the musical statues game. And maybe you tried some of the balance shapes and activities that we tried during this unit to see whether your balance had changed at all. So that is now the end of the lesson. So thank you for joining me and please take care of yourself. And I hope that I'll see you again soon. So take care. Bye.

Balance & coordination summary

Balance & coordination summary

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