DuPage Easter Seals in Villa Park, Illinois is offering an intensive therapy for children with cerebral palsy with real functional results. In Sacramento, California, children have 4 hours of therapy per day, 5 days a week, for 3 weeks and as reported on KCRA.com children are experiencing positive results. The program, called Suitability, is described on the Easter Seals website and provides intensive physical and occupational therapy and has many benefits including improved head and trunk control, balance and coordination, decrease in uncontrolled movements, strengthening, positive speech benefits, improved gait and both fine and gross motor skill improvement. The program is called Suitability because an important component is the suit that is worn, which is a modification of one designed by Russian scientists to minimize the physical effects of weightlessness for astronauts.
The suit allowed one student to walk across the stage for his high school graduation and another student was able to kick a ball with her left foot for the first time after the treatment. Still another was able to lift her arms to hug her Mom for the first time. Another child was able to better maintain posture and balance while moving after three rounds of the program. While these results sound almost too good to be true a study released in 2004 by the Therasuit LLC/Pediatric Fitness Center stated that 100% of participants have improvements in strength and range of motion, 92% show functional improvements, and 75% are able to sit independently after the program. Other reports detail a 94% improvement in fine and gross motor skills and 64% in speech productivity and fluency.