It has been a very long time since
the previous post, mainly due to an overload of school-related work. Now that
summer vacation has just started, I was able to make time to participate in
some community service for the handicapped. This week, I just completed a
three-week camp for research on children with various forms of cerebral palsy.
During the camp, each volunteer, or interventionist, was assigned to a child
and from 8:30 AM to 3 PM, the interventionist engaged the child in simple,
repetitive activities to force the child to use their affected limbs more
frequently through games.
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| One of the many activities that the children enjoyed |
Data collected from these
activities, such as the time it took for the child to complete a certain task
or the number of the child was able to do something over a 30-second period,
will be used for research after the camp. For example, two different methods of
rehabilitation were used, CIMT and HABIT. In CIMT, the interventionist used a
sling or cast to restrict the child’s good limb to force the use of the
affected limb only. But in HABIT, bi-manual activities were encouraged in order
to familiarize the child with using both hands comfortably. Comparing the
effects of the two rehabilitation methods is but one of the goals of the camp.
Although the primary purpose of this
camp was research and data collection, it also was a form of community service
since the affected children had fun playing various game with the volunteers
for three weeks. The main lesson I learned was that these handicapped children,
although they had trouble participating in all the games, still could find joy
in attempting to play such games. In other words, they are just as capable as
unaffected people to play games and have fun. I sincerely hope that unaffected
people are willing to sacrifice some time to invite the handicapped to join in
and have a great time together.
Image: https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/561068_430007027022073_1742093056_n.jpg
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