What is coordination?

Physical therapy

﻿Hi there, welcome to today's lesson. My name is Sophie Brazier. I am a children's physiotherapist. Thank you for joining me today. So, we are in unit five and this is lesson 11, and we are starting today to look a little bit at coordination. So the unit we're looking at is balance and coordination. So I thought it would be a good idea to just take a closer look at what coordination is. And then we will look at an activity that involves a fair bit of coordination. So you would just need yourself for today's lesson. And if you need any help, you might need to ask a parent or care for that now, and then we can get started with our lesson. 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 readily 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 let's begin by thinking about what is coordination. So you usually hear balance and coordination as these words together. So we've talked a little bit about balance and now we're just look a little closer how coordination is. So coordination allows for fluid, stable movement whilst performing everyday tasks. And a word called bilateral coordination means that you're able to use both sides of your body together. So if you think about it, your right and left side at the same time or using one from the other while one of them might be doing a slightly different thing. So, this could be both sides together. So doing the same action like clapping. So you're using both hands in the same time at the same rhythm to do the same action. Then you could do one after the other. So a rhythmical motion a bit like perhaps cycling a bike. So one you're right, goes first, then your left, then your right or rowing a boat could be another action when you're doing your arms together. So you could be doing that forwards or backwards. So you need smooth coordination of movement to be able to complete any task well. So, sometimes coordination of activities can be tricky. And when you've got one arm going one way or one body part going one way and one going the other. So hopefully here we'll have a little bit of an idea of how we can work on some coordination. Our activity we'll look at coordination as well. So the activity I'd like you to try it is called spotty dog. So you may have heard of this before, and if you'd like to give it a try, that'd be great. So you're to start off in standing with your feet about hip width apart, and you're going to take your right foot forward and your left arm forward, say, they're going to go together. Then you're going to swap. So you're going to do your left foot forward and your right arm. So you're kind of doing opposites. And then you can just step this out to begin with. So in the video, you'll see me demonstrating it, and then you can start to speed up when you get more confident with your coordination. And then, so you just basically change your position with your arms and legs, and you need to try and keep a rhythmical pattern for about 30 seconds, then stop and repeat. So if you watch me do the demonstration, you can then pause the video whilst you have a go at the activity yourself. And then if you restart and rejoin me afterwards, we can have a look at it a little bit further. So I'm now going to demonstrate some spotty dog, which are really good activity to do for some coordination, because you've got to use both sides of your body. So I will start off by showing you the basic activity. And then I will go through some ways of how to adapt it a little bit or maybe extend it. Okay so, your starting position is your feet both facing forward. And then what are you going to start doing is taking your right foot forward and your left arm, and then you're going to step back and then your arm's going to come back and then your left foot and your right arm. So you're going to almost do this. So you're alternating. So I'm going opposite on the leg, spotty dog. So you can get some music. And then what you can start doing is jumping. So you also may speeding up a little bit and then you build up a rhythm, start speeding up your spotty dog. So that might be a way to increase the complexity of the task, or you could slow it down if you need to make it a bit simpler, to just stay with the slow stepping out or that. And if you want to make it a bit more challenging, do it for a longer period of time. And if he wants to make it easier, just do it for like 20 to 30 seconds to start with, and then you can build it up. So if you go away, have a practise of that. If you pause the video now, and then you can do that yourself. And then we joined me afterwards and we'll go through some ways of the adaptations and they'll be written down. So here are some ways to either extend to make it a bit more challenging or to simplify so make it a little bit easier. So there's options for you. So, you can increase the speed. So you saw in the video that I was trying to go a little bit faster with my spotty dog, and I think I moved a little bit with them, didn't I? So, you can jump to change positions. So this when you're switching up a little bit, and getting a fastest spotty dog and you can increase the number of times you repeat the exercise. So you could say about I'm going to do 30 spotty dog, or you can even do a smaller number, but you could build up to 30 and increase the length of each step, to do really wide spotty dog, big spotty dog, and move around when you're doing a spotty dog. So you're not only working on your balance and coordination here, you're also bringing in an element of endurance, which we are going to be looking at in the next unit, unit six. So also let's think about simplifying it. So decrease the speed, to really slow it down. Go back to the beginning when you're doing opposite arm and leg and back opposite arm and leg and back. Do the exercise for a short amount of time. So maybe do 10 of them, or do it for a period, maybe do it for 20 or 30 seconds. Keep your arms by your side. So just practise to start with maybe doing your legs and do smaller steps and a nice way to do this is you could do it in front of a mirror. If you've got one, a full body length mirror, that's quite a nice idea 'cause then you can get some feedback of how you're moving. So if you pause the video, now you can have a go at those options and then see what works best for you. And then remember to rejoin me afterwards. Well done. If he gave the spotty dog activity a try, it can also bring in a little bit of endurance work and stamina, so you're almost getting your heart rate up a little bit, so it can be a good way to combine different elements of your movement as well. So please join me next time for lesson 12 in unit five, where we will be looking at another activity for your coordination All that leaves me to say now is take care, have a great rest of your day and I will see you very soon. Goodbye.

What is coordination?

What is coordination?

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