Physiotherapists from the “Dzielny Miś” Institute have spent over one year on developing this treatment: serial casting. We shave have very strong support from the best experts from around the world, including Beverly Cusick (PT, MS, NDT, COF/BOC), who finally came to us to examine and confirm our qualifications.

Serial Casting is an innovative way of treatment of children, incl. children with CP. The therapy consist of multiple casting, intensive exercising, monitoring of soft tissues developments driven by exercises, and re-casting.  This cycle repeats several times during each treatment. We also take advantage from innovative casting materials that we use for casting – fiberglass and synthetics. On top we carefully monitor the way we position feet inside the cast, as the feet remain the fundament for proper  whole-body muscles activization. All of the above characteristics are tailor made for children to drive particular structural and functional developments among young patients. Depending on starting point, we are able to significantly impact self-supported standing, improve range of motion of lower limbs or improve the gait quality.

They do very much! Serial Casting is totally different philosophy, methodology and effectiveness. What are the key differences?

• Foot position. During casting we position the foot in R1 range, which is the range providing the muscles’ highest functional effectiveness. Thanks to that “calf” muscles are capable to nourish and activate, as a result, impact the whole range of motion of lower limb. Linear foot position provides possibilities to effectively impact upper parts of the body with focus on trunk.
• Casting materials. Classic casting materials are mixed with synthetic materials and fiberglass. Such combination provides comfortable feeling and ensures right flexibility and durability.  On top we include additional materials that we imported from US that we use to protect lower limb from inner part of the cast and keep the possibility to re-position the foot without necessity of taking the cast of.
• During the 3-weeks treatment we will be casting, exercising, monitoring developments, re-casting and so on and so forth. Why? The exercises will drive structural changes in soft tissues. We have to re-cast the foot to reflect those changes and, as a result, position the foot in next casting respectively. This will make consecutive excercises even more effective.

Serial Casting – what are the differences versus regular casts?

There are vast of differences. Let’s begin from the most important ones:

• The treatment will last continuously for three weeks. In exceptional cases (i.e. age of the patient) the treatment might be shortened to two weeks. Such a long treatment is necessary to proceed with sufficient number of castings and re-castings.
• Every treatment during the three weeks rehab cycle is proceeded in lower limbs’ casts
• Team play. The best outcomes of the therapy with serial casting are achieved from proper patient-parents-physical therapist cooperation. Treatment with Serial Casting particularly demands your involvement. Exercises at home are crucial to achieve goals of the therapy!
• It’s the beginning of the way. Treatment with serial casting will impact trunk stability, build postural control, decrease muscle tone in lower limbs. It is highly possible that after finalizing the treatment the little patient will keep the casts and get list of exercises to conduct at home. Afterwards we will invite to remove the cast and possibly re-cast This is all to keep the pace of structural changes in soft tissues that we kick-off during the treatment. Once we are done with the casts it is crucial to secure proper orthosis and keep exercising! This is the only way to achieve impressive results of the therapy!

Indeed! This is why our treatment with serial casting is so efficient

The impact of the feet on the whole body has been underappreciated so far. Thanks to proper feet positioning we can impact postural control and , as a result, impact the whole body motor activity. There is no exaggeration if we say that feet are the fundamentals of the whole body!