Physiotherapy promotes an individual’s health and well-being, helping them to move optimally. Physiotherapy can be helpful for people of all ages with a wide a variety of health condition but paediatric physiotherapists use specialist knowledge of child development and childhood conditions to treat babies, children and young people. They assess and treat movement difficulties, developmental concerns or pain, which may impact on daily activities and function. Whether these movement difficulties are from birth, develop during childhood, are associated with a long-term condition or result from an injury the paediatric physiotherapist’s aim is to help children acquire or regain functional movement skills. The focus is on empowering children and young people to achieve their optimal physical function to enable participation in everyday activities at home, at school and in their community.
The Paediatric Physiotherapy service provides assessment, advice and treatment to children from birth to school leaving age (0-18 years). It provides child and family-centered advice and treatment in community and hospital settings, working closely with the multi-disciplinary team including doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, play specialists, teachers, teaching assistants and colleagues in social care.