From barely sitting up straight, to standing independently
He will be having new splints fitted at the soonest possible opportunity. These will hopefully support him in his progression.
The Etsebeth family has been through more than most this year, and three-year old Lukas has seen so much progress in terms of his physiotherapy.
Lukas was born on 20 January 2015, weighing 3,7kg at 51cm tall. At his routine six-week checkup, his parents, Koos and Janine, were told that he had bleeding on his brain. Fortunately, at the 12-week checkup, the bleeding had stopped, but there was still too much fluid around his brain.
Following that diagnosis, Lukas had a shunt inserted to drain the excess fluid from around his brain. He would undergo numerous surgeries and procedures in the hope of restoring his health.
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While the fluid issue was resolved, he still couldn’t stand, walk or speak, and to combat the standing and walking issues, Lukas began physiotherapy seven months ago. Prior to his physiotherapy, he underwent an operation that inserted Botox into his legs and feet in the hope that it would help with the issue of getting him to stand and hopefully walk.
For the past seven months Lukas has had physiotherapy twice a week, in conjunction with Botox injections and assistive devices. Lukas is now able to pull to stand at a support surface with moderate assistance.
He is able to maintain this position independently for up to 30 seconds. He is also able to sit independently on an elevated surface, although he needs to be monitored and is not safe in this position. Leopard crawling is also developing, with Lukas making more use of his lower limbs to propel himself forward. Lukas’ muscle tone in his lower limbs has also shown a marked increase in the past month.
Sadly though, the hard work has not come to an end. His fine motor abilities remain delayed and he still has difficulty eating. He has now also started speech therapy. While Lukas remains active and makes use of a variety of positions, the low muscle tone in his trunk predisposes him to a high risk of scoliosis.
Lukas continues to make progress in therapy. Both the frequency of sessions as well as the intensive home exercise programme performed by his mom, Janine, aid in his progression.
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