As Good as Being Yours
Those of you Dear Readers who have been applying ABR Techniques with your children or your own selves for many months or years, may from time to time have to explain the variety of ABR Techniques to other family members, friends or visitors. Not everyone can immediately find the words to be able to introduce others to the meaningfulness of the unique ABR work.
The newest Power Wraps, which we at ABR Denmark have been eagerly experimenting with for the last few years for example, could pose a certain difficulty in explanation. Although this need not be the case, when today the Internet is full of the most amazing images of women who wrap themselves from head to toe as if they were preparing for a Living Egyptian Ceremonial Mummification!
No one seems to find anything strange about these rather odd looking techniques because one silently accepts that a woman would do anything when chasing youthfulness or beauty – and the “Before and After” photos of results achieved are surely very convincing! These type of beauty and wellness wraps are gaining in high acclaim and women and men alike are prepared to spend anywhere from 200 to 400 Euro and upwards to have their body remodelled through these weight-loss, cellulite diminishing, wrinkle erasing wrapping techniques. One hour of sweating with a wrap and clay, coconut oil or other substances and your body could be reborn! – Yes, only one hour of sweating with wraps.
Should it be surprising? Body wrapping in various forms is a civilisation old technique. One of the most well known and – equally well-forgotten being the “baby swaddling”.
Baby swaddling was done through out the world by rich and poor in the so called “primitive” and civilised peoples alike – until that moment when the microscope-based medicine took over in the Western World. Any reason for swaddling a baby could not be found under a microscope or in any of the other more sophisticated diagnostic tools being used today such as MRI’s, CAT Scanning, blood tests, tissue biopsy’s, gene analysis, etc. All of these modern forms of diagnosis can show nothing about the importance of baby swaddling!
The same will of course be true for an ABR based Power Wrap.
We will talk about baby swaddling in a future post, but what is important about our present ABR wraps?
The ABR Team – who even takes the time to thoroughly observe and characterize the bodies of the weakened individuals in the ABR program, have been continuously been struck by several observations. Instead of having a body that gives a uniform response to the loads coming to it through the interactions with the environment – the body of a CP individual elicits a variety of responses – none of which are characteristic of the healthy individual. One can typically observe the following:
Sinking
Bulging
Folding
Buckling under
Twisting and
Sliding
None of these responses are however representative of the healthy individual. The healthy individual has a uniform response to loads coming from without – a response that could be called an internal “Bio-Tensegral” response to external motion or loading.
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| CP Child: Non-Uniform Response – buckling, sinking, chest and abdominal fold – all as a response to the loads of the child’s own body. |
Healthy Child: Uniform Response – Even extra loads from the top do not cause any sinking, twisting or buckling under.
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The CP child however exhibits all of these: sinking, folding, buckling under and twisting. This is a part and parcel of the life of a CP child in respect to his own body and own body experience and reactions.
The “own body experience” is more popularly termed our “proprioception”. This is the word used for ones internal body perception with respect to movement and spatial arrangement. What do we have as organs of our movement perception? We have “receptors” – and these receptors are anchored within our tendon/muscle system.
These are all the so-called “stretch-receptors” meaning that they are dependent upon tissues in our body coming into tension or being stretched. The tissue that is lengthened and brought into tension is normally a tendon. When the tendons are stretched through movement, then the neurons fire and send information back to our central nervous system. But on the other hand, if there is no tension – if the body reacts through bulging, sinking and buckling under –then this means that there is a severe loss of information returning from the body to the central nervous system.
Non-uniformity of response means that the area of the body is excluded from the body map and cannot perform any proprioceptive feedback.
What does an ABR Power Wrap do? It seriously reduces all of the above-described non-uniform reactions to loads coming to the body or to the body area. One does not re-position the foot when wrapping, but a well-performed wrap of the foot provides uniformity of response to the area being wrapped. A well-performed wrap of the hand provides tensional uniformity to an excluded hand with the typical horizontal fold or derailed wrist.
This tensional uniformity then ensures that the area begins to return the bodies proprioceptive system.
In addition the wrap serves to “re-connect” the “dis-connected” areas to more stable body areas.
Tensional uniformity and uniformity of response means that the excluded area can be re- integrated into the proprioceptive organisation of the body.
A return to the body map of an excluded body area has enormous consequences, which we are now seeing as:
- Reduction of spasticity
- Improved automatic responses of the feet and legs to loading
- Improved weight bearing responses
- Improved trunk stability
- Reduction of scoliosis
- Spine development
- Spine stability
- Reduction of hip pains
The list of improvements being seen with the Power Wrap usage is long! Above is only a partial list. The biggest impediment is of course the time needed to put a wrap on.
We show photos below of the foot to leg development of a child who used the wraps for a few months. During the time period, we were employing a much simpler and less effective wrap in compared to our new wraps set-ups – and still one could see the fantastic effects!
Of course the improvements in trunk stability and head control were not coming from any of the simple foot wraps that we were using at that time – this came through other ABR Techniques – but the fact that she eagerly takes the weight on the feet – that the feet react spontaneously to the body loads – this was wrap work.
In spite of the time needed to put on the newest version of the wraps, the benefits now being seen are so obvious, that we can only encourage our parents to use the Power Wraps as much as possible.
Wear them during the day, at school, when sleeping – whenever it will work.
Yes, I know: if one puts them on for the school day, then one may need to answer questions from the teachers! Or see the raised eyebrows when one brings the child.
Why is it that teachers take the items below for granted? One would get no strange looks if one brings the child to school with any of the following:
It is only a matter of time until the newest ABR based “CP Fashion” hits the world. Be brave and add these wraps to your child’s wardrobe and selected outfits.
The benefits clearly outweigh the funny looks one might get.
And remember: When the area of the body being wrapped achieves a higher level of tensional uniformity, it returns to the body map. In addition the tensional uniformity of the area is the signal needed for those famous myo-fibroblasts to come out of the hibernation they go into when the tension is not present. They then begin to wake up and work hard on the tissue remodelling work! It is only a matter of time until the remodelling takes place allowing for improved structural integration.
The elements of the wrap provide the stability and tensional uniformity needed for a new internal mapping and tissue remodelling of the area. The achieved tensional uniformity is so well integrated into the child’s body that it is:
“As Good As Being Yours”!
