Paediatric physiotherapy

Sandie Downes is a paediatric physiotherapist within the Red Hill Physiotherapy team. Sandie specialises in assessing and managing movement difficulties or motor delays in babies and young infants.

"Motor development" is a term referring to a childs development of movement skills such as rolling, sitting, crawling, and walking. The first 3 years of life is the most important phase in this process, with full maturity of our skills not occurring until 9 years of age. All of our more advanced adult movement skills depend on the correct acquisition of these more basic patterns of movement during childhood. In other words the childhood movement skills we develop form the foundation for building more sophisticated movements skills as an adult. It is therefore crucial for early recognition and management of any faulty, delayed, or abnormal movement patterns since building adult skills on a faulty foundation often causes problems in later life.

Our paediatric service includes:

Screening babies at 6 months, 12 months, and 2 years of age to ensure normal development is occurring
Treatment of babies and infants with conditions such as cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus, and neuromotor disorders
Assessment and treatment of children & adolescents demonstrating movement problems, including "developmental co-ordination disorder" and attention deficit disorder

As we mentioned earlier, it is increasingly being recognised that poor "motor development" predisposes people to chronic or recurring pain states as adults (such as lower back pain or neck pain). It is much more effective and cheaper to tackle such issues at a younger age. Like learning to play a musical instrument, development of new or improved movement skills comes much faster for the baby or child than for an adult. One of Red Hill Physiotherapy's main goals is to assist the development of our children's movement skills, so they will continue to move freely and comfortably throughout their lives.