Re: article in the Toronto Star this weekend...

[Guest guest]

I haven't heard of them either? I couldn't pull up the article, the

1st link didn't work - the second link to the newspaper worked, but I

didn't find the article? Sorry!

Debbie Abby's mom DOCGrad

MI

>

> Has anyone heard of the company, Precision Prosthetics and Orthotics

> mentioned in the article?

>

>

> Heading off a new problem

>

> http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?

pagename=thestar/Layout/Artic

>

le_Type1 & c=Article & cid=1019139608618 & call_page=TS_Health & call_pageid=9

688675

> 05381 & call_pagepath=Life/Health

>

> Mon Apr 22 08:06:31 2002

>

> http://www.thestar.com - Canada's largest daily newspaper online

[Guest guest]

Thank you for sharing this article with us, it was very well

written. I have never heard of the company that they mention, but

the woman interviewed sounds very knowledgeable.

I'll cut an paste the article in case anyone else had trouble finding

it.

Niki

Kaylie & Danny (STAR grads)

Phila., PA

Heading off a new problem

Advice to place babies on backs is creating misshapen skulls

Schlueter

Special to The Star

BELLEVILLE, Ill. — Like all smart parents now, and

Higgins made sure little went to sleep on his back.

He was their first child, and they wanted to do anything they could

to avoid the tragedy of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. So the couple

religiously followed the American Academy of Pediatrics' decade-

long " Back to Sleep " slogan and thought nothing more of it.

After just two months, they noticed something odd about their son's

head. Instead of being round or oval, it was turning into a

parallelogram.

" My wife actually noticed it, " said Higgins. " She said, `Look

at his head — it's out farther here.' So we had it checked, and they

said he had a flat spot or something in the back. Since his head was

always turned to the right, it caused the right side to push out

farther than the left. If you look straight down on his head, you can

see one of his ears is forward by a little. "

Like so many children in the past decade, had developed

positional plagiocephaly. It occurs when constant pressure on one

part of a baby's soft skull causes the forehead, ear and sometimes

even the cheek on that side of the head to push forward while leaving

a flat spot in back.

It's not thought to affect the brain or a child's development. But,

if not corrected, it can leave children with an obviously misshapen

head and make them the butt of teasing and odd looks throughout their

lives.

That's why the Higginses were recently in the offices of Precision

Prosthetics and Orthotics. It is one of only 17 U.S. companies that

has government approval to make and market a device that corrects the

condition — a helmet that babies wear 22 hours a day for several

months.

It's lightweight and babies adapt to it readily, says Barbara

Ziegler, the firm's certified prosthetic orthotist. More important,

it works. In less than three months, the constant force applied by

the helmet has reduced 's cranial asymmetry by about 50 per cent.

was being fitted with his second helmet. The first was already

too small.

Even Dad had a hard time believing how well it worked. " It's amazing

what we can do nowadays, " he said. " To manipulate a skull to come

together just by wearing a helmet .... "

Ziegler has fitted dozens of children over the years. It's a problem

she has seen more and more ever since the 1992 doctors' advisory that

babies be put to sleep on their backs to avoid suffocating themselves

by rebreathing their exhaled air. She fits four or five new patients

a week.

" With the car carriers and bouncy seats, a lot of these kids are

spending 98 per cent of their day lying on their backs, " she said.

Still other children are born with a medical condition called

torticollis, a muscle tightness that prevents a child from turning

his head. Put the two together and you get the recipe for a lot of

wide, flat heads or misshapen parallelograms like 's.

" You want heads to fall within a normal range, " Ziegler said.

``There's no proof it causes cognitive delays, but some studies have

shown internal brain structures aren't symmetrical. They don't know

that that's causing any major problems, but they know they're not

looking the way they should.

" Besides, you want the child's head to be relatively normal shaped so

that when it goes into a bike helmet, the helmet is reasonably

effective. "

Ziegler says she has seen heads off by as much as much as a full

inch. was on the moderate-severe borderline with an asymmetry of

a little more than a half-inch. Now, three months later, it's down to

about seven-tenths of a centimeter — a little more than a quarter

inch.

" Our goal is to get all these kids under like (a half centimeter), "

Ziegler said. " Under point-five and they get some hair and you can't

tell too much. You really want them to look good enough so by the

time they walk into a preschool classroom, nobody can tell. "

Being fitted with a helmet is a painless process, said Ziegler. First

they are examined to make sure they do not have synostosis, a

condition in which the " soft spot " on top of the head closes early,

preventing it from growing side to side. Synostosis requires early

corrective surgery.

If the problem is plagiocephaly, Ziegler figures out how much

asymmetry she needs to correct, then makes a mold of the head and

shapes it to how she wants it to look. Technicians fashion the helmet

from plastic and sheet foam.

A helmet costs $750, including follow-up visits. Ziegler says

children with moderate asymmetry usually can get by with one helmet.

As pediatricians become more aware of the problem, she is hoping her

caseload may drop again. She herself offers this advice:

" We tell all of our new parents, `back to sleep, front to play.'

Babies need to get on their bellies to play, so we can hopefully

solve some of this before it becomes an issue. The kids don't mind

wearing the helmets, but if you don't have to wear one, it's much

nicer. "

Belleville News-Democrat

>

> Has anyone heard of the company, Precision Prosthetics and Orthotics

> mentioned in the article?

>

>

> Heading off a new problem

>

> http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?

pagename=thestar/Layout/Artic

>

le_Type1 & c=Article & cid=1019139608618 & call_page=TS_Health & call_pageid=9

688675

> 05381 & call_pagepath=Life/Health

>

> Mon Apr 22 08:06:31 2002

>

> http://www.thestar.com - Canada's largest daily newspaper online