Jamshedpur, May 13: After achieving success in giving physiotherapy aid to its ?special? children, School of Hope is now extending its services to other special children who are not part of the school. Special physiotherapy sessions for such children will begin in June.

Though the OPD was being run on an experimental basis for the past few weeks, the school principal is now convinced that the physiotherapy department of the school would be of great help to those parents who cannot afford to take their children to big hospitals, private nursing homes or private physiotherapist.

Shyamala Raju, principal, School of Hope (a school for special children), said, ?We realised that our students were benefiting a lot from the physiotherapy sessions that we had introduced a few months ago. Considerable improvement in the movement of our students motivated us to hold out-patient department (OPD) for children.?

?Sometimes, doctors are able to detect deformities in the movement of a child?s limbs within a few weeks. If parents are able to act quickly and get their children to a physiotherapist as soon as possible, remedy is on its way,? said Raju citing an example of a one-year-old child who was being brought in to the OPD when School of Hope was still toying with the idea of including others.

She explained that if a child was trained from a young age, there were chances that mental and physical handicap could be overcome. ?Through exercise a child?s muscles are relaxed, helping the bones and muscles to develop naturally. In case of a mental handicap, through regular exercises the mental and physical faculties of a special child could be made to coordinate for improved effects and this is the reason why we are stressing on physiotherapy for these children.?

Buoyed by the benefits of physiotherapy, Raju even introduced dance classes for her students at the School of Hope. She believes that every activity is physiotherapy in its own form. ?The more interesting it is made the sooner the children run and the more they benefit,? she said.