The success of your home exercise program can have a huge impact on the effectiveness of your therapy. And when it comes to pediatric therapy, one of the most important things you can do to ensure that your kiddos follow through with their HEP is to make it fun!
We talked to Chanda Jothen, PT and the voice behind Pink Oatmeal, to get her advice on how to get patients engaged in their therapy. Chanda has some great advice to help you make therapy fun for your patients.
Meet Chanda
Chanda graduated PT school in 2008 and, after a couple of years in orthopedics, she switched to schools for about 8 years. At first her blog didn’t have much to do with therapy.
“The blog didn’t talk about physical therapy until I started going to baby classes with my first son,” Chanda said. “People had all these questions, and I usually had the answers because of my background as a PT. Eventually I started putting that on the website and it grew from there.”
Now Pink Oatmeal is a valuable resource for parents, teachers, and pediatric therapists. It’s filled with different activities and themes, mostly focused around physical activity.
Themes
When it comes to getting kids engaged and making therapy fun, themes are your secret weapon. Chanda said “My main trick is to ask the kids what they like. I couldn’t get one of my kids to do anything, so I asked him ‘What’s your favorite thing?’ and he said basketball, so I themed everything around that.”
Right now, the most popular theme on Pink Oatmeal is superheroes (especially her Superhero Brain Breaks), but you may find that your patients are more interested in other themes.
According to Chanda the key is to:
- Determine what activities your patient needs to do
- Find out what your patient likes
- Figure out a way to link what you need them to do with what they like
Simple enough, right?
Easy Mode
But it gets even simpler! In addition to her Freebie Library, Chanda wanted to have an option that would give her loyal customers access to all the resources. So to make things even easier, you can become a member of Pink Oatmeal.
“I know how much time it takes when you’re in school or home to try to plan all these things,” Chanda says. “I wanted to give therapists a way to have that planned for them.”
Pink Oatmeal membership allows pediatric physical therapists to spend less time developing resources, and more time on other important parts of their job. And if you subscribe to Fusion’s HEP Add-On, you can upload all of these activities right into Fusion!
Learn More
To learn more about Fusion Web Clinic’s HEP Add-On, schedule a demo below. And if you’re interested in joining Pink Oatmeal, you can get an annual membership here!
Request a Demo
Fusion Web Clinic is the only all-in-one practice management software designed specifically for pediatric OTs, PTs, and SLPs.
To learn more about Fusion and the HEP Add-On, please fill out the form below.