Friday, November 20, 2009

In Comparison



Some of you may be wondering what the results were of our last ABR comparison report for Ayla...well according to my Mum anyway :). So I thought I would share it with you as well as some photos of Ayla with her 'machine' on.....Our very own Android.

The comparison files are really in depth and include photos so I thought I might just add one here and there over the next few weeks. I'll add my favourite one first.


February 09


October 09

The paragraphs below, in italics, are taken straight from her comparison file. I haven't edited them....basically because I'm too lazy :)


The quadruplet position in Feb09 yielded this strange placement of her arm. We could how much the shoulder blades were depressed and how the humerus went into the most unusual backward twist. In the home video of Oct09, she is beginning to hold her position with the elbow although we could see how she still used the trapezius muscles to help her with the position. So in that sense it is still fake support from the shoulder. But what we could clearly see is the change of the shoulder joint. The shoulder joint has strengthened to the extent that the arm no longer does such strange backward twist by itself. What is really more important is that she begins to use her elbow meaningfully for the support of her upper body.

The manner of the legs spread has changed as well. In Feb09, Leonid had to hold the entire legs to ensure that her legs would not spread outwards and shot out of the quadruplet position. Her ‘froginess’ of the legs have clearly changed. With much less restraint provided by the mother in the home video of Oct 09, her legs do not spread out as before and she is able to hold the quadruplet position even though it is still less than the real quadruplet position expected.

Note how her shoulder blades slide all the way upwards to the base of skull wheras in Oct 09, her shoulder blade begin to leave the region of the base of skull. That was in Feb 09, she was completed incapacitated by the depression of the shoulder blade and by the upwards slide of the shoulder blade


This was the result that had us really excited. The change is absolutely visible, and not just to us. What also excites me is the possibilities that this could lead to. There's a chance, however small, that Ayla may actually be able to crawl eventually. But for now, we take each small improvement as it comes and we put our heads down and our butts up and we work....Hard.

4 comments:

sabine said...

I'm sooo happy for you guys!!!!
congratulations to you three for the hard work!!!!
hugs sabine
p.s. love you new blog!! looks great!

Melissa Luxmoore said...

Thanks Sabine.....pretty happy with our new home too. And thanks for the congrats too. We can't wait to see what the next year of ABR will bring.

Shannon Ford said...

Wow Lis - That's great to see the process coming along and achieving small victories that are hugely significant... Good stuff.xxx

Robin said...

Wow Lis and Steven,
A great website, and I am believing that Ayla will be looking and reaching for the stars very soon, and thank you for the lovely stories of her assessments. I looked avidly at her improvement aligned with the bio medical information. Her improved skeletal structure is amazing. But we deal in "amazing" and all the hard slog that goes with it. Well done Mummy and Daddy. Hugs from another Gma.