Postural control goes far beyond what we assume means good posture—head up, shoulders back, and spine straight. It affects how you move through life by controlling your body’s position in relation to what you’re doing and to your environment.
When something affects your ability to control your posture, you can struggle with everyday tasks, which is where occupational therapy (OT) comes in.
At Celebrations Speech Group, our team helps both kids and adults to navigate their worlds in the face of challenges that range from speech disorders and intellectual disability to balance issues and lack of postural control.
When it comes to improving postural control, our occupational therapy services and physical therapy (PT) can make a world of difference.
When you stand up to ride a train or bus, your body is hard at work helping you maintain your balance in this moving environment. Similarly, when you get up in the morning and start to dress, you rely on postural control for balance.
Our point here is that there’s little that you do during the day that doesn’t somehow enlist postural control.
Your center of gravity is a big part of this control system. It provides the base support for your postural control. With a solid center of gravity, your nervous system, musculoskeletal system, respiratory system, and more all work together to help you move confidently in your environment.
Now, let’s turn our attention to how your postural control can become compromised. One study refers to postural control as the “Integration of motor, sensory, visual, cognitive, and vestibular neural networks.”
So, when there’s a disruption in this system, it can lead to postural instability. Some examples of conditions that can lead to postural control issues include:
While these are all serious issues, postural control can be temporarily affected by more minor issues, such as a middle ear infection that throws off your balance.
If you or a loved one is struggling with postural control, there are therapeutic solutions, including physical and occupational therapies.
The heart of our work during OT is finding ways to improve your ability to perform everyday functions. We meet you where you are and design a program that will allow you to navigate your world more safely and productively.
If you’re struggling with postural control, we turn to OT to help you get these systems to coordinate better so that you have equilibrium and a more solid center of gravity. To do this, we perform simple, everyday tasks in a controlled environment that can train (or retrain) your mind and body.
A key part of these efforts also includes PT. Through PT, we work on strengthening your muscles to provide more stability and balance. For example, we might focus on core strengthening exercises that can improve how your body sits, stands, and moves.
Through PT, we also focus on balance exercises, as well as range of motion efforts that can improve your function and ability to meet the demands of everyday life.
As you might imagine, improving postural control can vary greatly from one person to the next according to their challenges and goals. This means that each OT and PT program is highly customized.
If you want to learn more about postural control and whether you or a loved one might benefit from improvement in this area, please contact one of our offices in Brentwood, Stockton, or Elk Grove, California, to schedule an appointment.
