ROSALIND GUY | The Daily News
Simple Strokes Therapy Uses Latest Tools to Bring Out Optimal
AbilitiesOn a
recent Wednesday morning at Simple Strokes Therapy in Southaven,
8-year-old Matthew Gary worked with an occupational therapist.
Matthew, who has an undiagnosed developmental disorder, is
learning to walk and communicate better.
He wears a blue and black
glove-like device on his left arm that he uses to drum a beat
along with a steady rhythm coming from a nearby computer. It’s
not child’s play, though.
Matthew recently was referred to
the center where he already has seen progress, which thrills his
dad.
Melissa Slade, an occupational
therapist with Simple Strokes Therapy, said since Matthew began
the therapy sessions, she’s seen a marked improvement in his
walking. Another patient, a little girl, now sleeps through the
night, she added.
“Every child receives different
benefits from this,” Slade said, describing the benefits of the
new therapy program.
Simple Strokes Therapy
recently began offering the Interactive Metronome, a brain-based
rehabilitation assessment and training program. It was developed
in the early 1990s to improve the processing abilities that
affect attention, motor planning and sequencing.
In recent years, therapy
centers like Simple Strokes Therapy have found that the program
works well on children who have been diagnosed with attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well as other
developmental disabilities.
Steady growth
The metronome is just one of
the tools therapists at the Southaven facility use to help
children from newborn to age 21 reach their optimal abilities.
They also offer aquatics therapy, speech therapy, physical
therapy and Simply Growing, a mother’s day out program for
children ages 18 months to 5 years.
The new programs are a sign of
the growth Simple Strokes Therapy has seen since the
husband-wife ownership team of Trey and Robin Smith opened the
center five years ago, said Trey Smith.
When the couple first started the
business, they mostly were doing home-based therapy. Back then,
Robin Smith, who recently earned her doctorate in physical
therapy, was working with children through Baptist Memorial
Hospital-DeSoto’s early intervention program.
“They came to Robin and said
there’s an opportunity that we would like for you to pursue,”
Trey Smith said.
That opportunity was to go into
the DeSoto County Schools and provide therapy.
Over time, word got out about the
services she was offering, and soon other school systems – Tate
County, Marshall County and Holly Springs – were calling.
“The outcomes were good, so by
word of mouth she started getting more calls from other school
districts,” Trey Smith said. “So it really started out with
school-based therapy.”
As the patient base started to
grow, the couple began to bring in other therapists to help with
the workload.
“In 2003, we were approached by
the Mississippi First Steps Early Intervention program to do
home-based therapy for children ages 0 to 3,” Smith said. “And
that is when we moved into our little facility on Goodman Road
in order to have more of an office space just because we were
seeing growth and we had actually increased our numbers.”
Teamwork
As they continued to experience
more growth within their patient base and in anticipation of
even more, the Smiths began building the current facility off
Airways Place in 2005 and moved into it last year.
“We’ve grown tremendously in the
last three years,” Smith said. “And the outcomes remain positive
with all the children.”
Smith’s background is in
financial planning and business administration, so he handles
the business end of the operation, while his wife enjoys working
with the children.
Together, they share joy at
seeing the progress children who visit the center make.
Over the past year, more patients
are being referred to Simple Strokes from outlying areas,
including Memphis, and it’s a trend the owners think will
continue. As they do, they said they will continue to add
services as needed to suit the needs of the children.
“That’s why we do it,” Robin
Smith said. “For the children. It’s all about the children.”
|
