Does Plagio ALWAYS mean tort as well?

[Guest guest]

Paige was first diagnosed with torticollis by the family doctor 3 weeks

ago. We went for a PT consultation and they felt she was a VERY mild

case, didnt' need to come back as long as we kept up with the

repositioning to look the other way, and the stretches. The family

doctor said NOTHING about the greatly mishapen head Paige was sporting.

As a side to the torticollis our family doctor refered us to a

pediatrician so he could track her torticollis progress.

The pediatricain moves her this way and that way, gets her to look left,

holds her up and says, " It's not torticollis, it's plagiocephaly. " The

reason he thinks the tort was diagnosed was because of the shape of her

head, making it harder to look left because of the " ridge " at the back

of her head. She has full range of motion to the right and the left,

although she prefers looking to the right.

I'm still keeping up with the exercises the PT gave us to ensure there

is no tightness and shortening of the muscle on that side.

Does every baby that has right or left plagio have tort? Should I be

pushing for regular PT?

Kate

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 6/21/2002 7:42:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time, jrfrenzy@... writes:

The

reason he thinks the tort was diagnosed was because of the shape of her

head, making it harder to look left because of the "ridge" at the back

of her head.

Kate,

This does get so confusing!! Plagio and tort can both be started inutero (as well as from outside conditions), but just because you have one condition doesn't necessarily mean you'll get both (even though with tort, it can trigger plagio, and not the opposite- plagio will not cause tort to my knowledge). If a child's headshape inutero is constrained and forces (pelvic bone or rib cage usually) start shifting the shape of the head, this could very well cause what seems to be a preference when born. Your Doc described it very well, and I have heard I think Debbie talk about it being like the bottom of a bowl, where they don't have enough head strength to get off that flat spot and over the "ridge"- keeping them on that flat spot because physically they just can't get off it themselves. Tort can create plagio because of the tight neck muscle making it impossible for kids to look towards the tort side- which also makes them favor the non-tort side and creates plagio.

In our case, both plagio and tort started inutero- hindsight is 20/20 and we can now see on his 2 day old pics the smaller eye and pointy right side, indicative of plagio. The tort was dx at 2 months, and ironically, the plagio was never dx, we only learned of plagio through a mom at pt and then this great group helped us press the issue and get things done. I hope this helps!

' Mom

[Guest guest]

Kate,

had positional plagio on one side and did not have tort. One does not

necessarily lead to the other. I think that continuing the stretching will

only help and it wouldn't hurt to keep up on it.

Marci (Mom to )

Oklahoma