Taping it Down

In a quest to combat Jordan’s recent complaints about shoulder pain, I took her to a new occupational therapist. We have a brand new plan of attack and Jordan is very excited. Introducing… Colorful tape!

Jordan is working with kineso tape – it’s an elastic tape that targets muscles and helps train them to work differently. Researchers may not all agree the it really helps, but I’m willing to give it a try. You may recognize the tape from its use during the 2012 summer Olympics. And so far, Jordan totally buys into this idea.

During her first occupational therapy assessment, the OT found Jordan’s shoulder is separating a bit and her shoulder blades work differently. But thanks to our focus on Jordan’s core strength, her shoulders and core are very balanced. Jordan’s pain is probably coming from muscles that are just really difficult to target without focused exercises. Future appointments may include pilates or yoga.

For the next week, Jordan will focus on two exercises to help her shoulders gain balance and strength. She’ll use a phone book (once I find one) and her activity arm to hold her body in place and squeeze her shoulders together. She’ll also lay down with a rolled up towel down her spine and she needs to squeeze her shoulders together. Each squeeze needs to happen while I count to five. We’ll see if that helps when we return to OT next week.