Nicky Pither, Physiotherapist at RNIB Pears Centre for Specialist Learning, outlines how water therapy can benefit children and young people with disabilities and health conditions…

Hydrotherapy
involves stimulation and gentle exercise in warm water at a constant
temperature of 32 degrees Celsius. Hydrotherapy pools tend to be
purpose-built with a constant or very gradual water depth of around 1
metre. Pools usually incorporate multi-sensory equipment such as
lighting and sound to stimulate the senses.

Hydrotherapy offers
tangible benefits to the health and well being of children and young
people with a range of disabilities and health conditions:

• The warmth of the water has an effect on the individual
  neuro-muscular junctions which results in decreased muscle tone and 
• decreased spasticity.
• Buoyancy of the water is used to assist movement of joints - which is either more difficult or painful on dry land.
• Movement
  in the water and water pressure helps to reduce residual lung capacity
  for children and young people with chest problems. This enables more
  efficient lung function and reduces the risk of chest infections
  developing.
• Creating turbulence around an extremity (i.e. arm or
  leg) can increase their awareness of the limb and help with mobility -
  both in the water and later on dry land.
• Multi-sensory environment helps stimulate the senses whilst calming children with sensory and learning difficulties.

At
RNIB Pears Centre we offer specialist education, care and therapies to
children and young people with complex needs and vision impairment.
Additional needs we support include physical disabilities, multi-sensory
impairment, significant learning difficulties and disabilities,
autistic spectrum disorders, additional medical and health needs
(including long-term ventilation or life-threatening or life-limiting
conditions) and emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Hydrotherapy
has always been part of our provision but until recently we had to go
off-site for children to use a hydrotherapy pool at another local
school. We were restricted in how often we could access this pool and
reliant on minibus drivers being available to take more than one
wheelchair user.

Although we worked hard to make hydrotherapy
available for everyone that needed it, there were always serious
challenges to accessing an external provider’s pool which meant that for
many, it was just too risky to achieve. Local public baths are too busy
and cold and don’t have ceiling hoist facilities. Other local
hydrotherapy pools tend to be fully booked and only available at
inconvenient times.

We wanted to enable our young people with
complex needs to access water therapy on a regular basis. In 2015, we
launched a fundraising campaign to raise money to build a hydrotherapy
pool on our site. Thanks to generous donations from supporters including
the Bradbury Foundation, Pears Foundation and local community groups
our dream was made a reality and our on-site pool, the Bradbury
Hydrotherapy Centre, opened in February 2017.

Since the new
hydrotherapy pool has been open for use, the impact on our children and
young people has been phenomenal. First and foremost, it’s enjoyable and
fun! This has had an immediate positive impact on their psychological
well being.

Some young people have never been able to use a pool
and are now enjoying regular sessions and experiencing the freedom of
movement in the pool – whereas on dry land their movements are extremely
limited. Also being able to move in the water improves their general
physical stamina and lung function.

Others who tend to be in
crisis for a lot of the time as they are overloaded by their sensory
environment find that after 20 minutes of splashing and moving round in
the pool they are a lot calmer and more able to cope in class.

Being
able to get to and from the pool easily means that we can respond
quickly to changes in young people’s fitness to swim. We can be flexible
about timing to meet individual health needs, such as medication and
therapy programmes. This would never have been possible with an off-site
facility. So, for example, if a young person was initially unable to
process the idea of going swimming as they arrive in school but after an
hour in class lesson – they felt able to go they could go – whereas
before they would have “missed the bus”.

All children and young people who are using the hydrotherapy pool have benefitted:

• Young people who are normally in their seating systems in their
  wheelchair for a lot of the day can experience freedom of movement in
  the pool.
• Others who don’t move much on dry land become active and really enjoy moving round the pool.
• Young
  people who have very limited movement and struggle to communicate when
  on dry land are able to vocalise or move their arms to indicate
  preferences whilst in the water.
• Passive physiotherapy
  programmes can be difficult to tolerate on dry land but in the water the
  young people with tight muscles and joints are much happier when their
  muscle stretches are incorporated into a fun or relaxing time in the
  pool.

We have been able to extend our outreach service to
include hydrotherapy already and this work will develop to a greater
extent over time. This allows us to share expertise whilst introducing
other children to the opportunities that water therapy offers.

For more information about RNIB Pears Centre and to watch a short film showing the impact of the hydrotherapy pool, visit www.rnib.org.uk/pearscentre

Thanking You,

With Kind Regards

J.Chandrasekharan