New feeding clinic may help children eat

Erin Schroeder, an occupational therapist at Floyd Valley Hospital, sits with potential patient Michaela Nelson, 6, on a bolster swing. The swing is part of the sensory and motor equipment that will be used to help determine why some children have trouble eating as part of the hospital's new feeding clinic. [Click to enlarge]

Some children don't like to eat or have difficulty eating.

Floyd Valley Hospital's new children's therapy services will try to determine why and how to overcome those problems through its feeding clinic using sensory and motor equipment.

Erin Schroeder, OTR/L, an occupational therapist, said those tools, like a trampoline, an obstacle course, a slide and a large ball, can help settle a child down in preparation for eating.

Last week she demonstrated how a bolster swing -- a wide, red cylinder suspended from chains -- might be used by straddling it and pushing gently with her feet as she sat behind Michaela Nelson, 6, a potential patient.

Ann Cole-Nelson, Michaela's mom, hopes the new therapy will allow her daughter, who has attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), to relax and be able to eat.

"We've really been struggling with her weight and eating a variety of things," Nelson said. "She's very fidgety and that makes it hard to settle down to eat and sleep."

Children diagnosed with disorders such as autism, attention deficit disorder (ADD), (ADHD), cerebral palsy and Down's syndrome are more susceptible to having eating problems, Schroeder said.

Each of sensory tool, depending on how it's used, can provide different stimulation, which will help get the child ready for activities, such as eating, Schroeder said.

"You just have to find what works for them," she said.

Children may not to eat because of food textures, tastes, smells, temperatures or pain from a past experience with acid reflux, said Dr. Jolene Meis, a pediatrician at Medical Associates.

"You attack the sensory deficiency they have and then you try to broaden that to feed," she said. "Sensory integration helps them accept new things, new sounds, new tastes."

Through the feeding clinic therapists will analyze what led the child to not eat well, and then provide a regimen to follow to allow them to eat better, Meis said.

"I have had personal patients who have undergone the feeding therapies (elsewhere) and have success," she said. "A child who is not eating is not able to develop very normally."

Schroeder will be joined by a team of medical professionals including a speech therapist, a dietician, a pediatrician or nurse practioner and a child psychologist, on a consultant basis, who will work together to provide the children's therapy services.

Four of the therapists attended a training clinic in California to learn more about sensory integration in relation to the feeding clinic, Schroeder said.

FVH's feeding clinic, which officials plan to have ready Oct. 1, will help children overcome eating difficulties by working to help them develop muscle tone, tranisition from feeding tubes to eating with their mouths, adjust to abnormalities of the mouth and maintain weight among other positive changes.

"It's going to provide diagnostic treatment and consultive experiences for children," she said of the clinic. "We're working as a team to assess all components of what a child brings into play when it comes to eating."