24-Hour Postural Care is both a therapeutic and a preventative approach which considers body positions over a 24-hour period in order to maximize function and decrease body distortion in people with movement disorders.
24-Hour Postural Care can:
- Help to mitigate the negative impact of gravity on body shape
- Decrease pain
- Improve sleep
- Improve sitting posture and daytime function
- Increase ease of physical care
- Improve digestion, respiration, and toileting
What is the 24-Hour Postural Care Project?
Our project provides consultation and training to providers across Vermont who are working with children and young adults with severe movement disorders.
We provide consultation on:
- Analyzing posture across a 24-hour period
- Assessing body symmetry and other outcomes measures such as pain levels and quality and quantity of sleep
- Trialing, ordering, fitting a sleep system, if needed
- Assessing positioning in other equipment throughout the day
- Identifying the positioning goals for each activity within a 24-hour period
How does the project work?
- We identify those in need of 24-Hour Postural Care by discussions with and training of local providers. Our process starts with a routines-based intake meeting to better define the needs of the individual team and family.
- We support teams to learn to measure body symmetry and other outcome measures such as pain levels and quality and quantity of sleep through modeling, coaching and training.
- We provide consultation to teams to trial sleep systems and other positioning equipment.
- We train teams and families in use of new equipment.
- We monitor the team and family’s implementation of new equipment and support teams to re-measure on a regular basis to measure progress.