Posture & Growth Check
For Children 6-16
✔️ Spinal Development Check
✔️ Postural Strength & Fitness Check
✔️ Balance & Coordination Check
✔️ Scoliosis Check
The Posture and Growth Check is a quick 20 minute screen for children aged between 6-16 to check that they are growing correctly, that they are meeting their milestones and that they are developing the postural habits required to maintain their postural fitness during their periods of growth.
Why Have a Posture and Growth Check?
The Purpose of the Posture and Growth Check is to determine quickly if your child is developing the structural support they require to grow properly and the postural habits they require to grow properly into adulthood.
As children grow, it is important for their long term health to ensure that they are growing correctly, they are meeting their milestones as far as their neurological development is concerned (like muscle strength, balance, coordination, and concentration) and that they are developing the postural habits required to maintain their health as they mature.
In bygone days much of this development occurred in the course of a child’s day to day activities. Unfortunately, today children are much more sedentary and with the advent of digital technology these postural habits are not developing as they should.
We have a new term for this, it’s called ‘TECH NECK‘ which is associated from long hours of device use and is now particularly prevalent in our children.
We are now calling this generation Gen C because they are continually in a C shape from looking at devices.
What this Means
We’re seeing spinal developmental changes in young children that will result in fixation of these postures as they grow with the increased likelihood of neck pain, headaches and all the issues that arise from poor spinal alignment over long periods of time.
The researcher is recommending that children be screened as a matter of routine.
We recommend all children between the ages of 6 to 16 have a growth check at least twice a year, in order to make sure they are growing straight, that they do not have any growth problems that need urgent attention, and that they are developing good postural habits that will last them a lifetime.
To Book a Posture and Growth Check, Simply Click the Button Below and Fill in the Intake Form For Your Child.
What Do We Do in a Posture and Growth Check?
A posture and growth check involves a physical exam and postural evaluation where we look at:
✔️ Growth and Symmetry: Hip height, shoulder height, and head position.
✔️ Joint Mobility.
✔️ Postural Character & Postural Control: The strategy your child employs to maintain themselves upright: how they sit, how they stand, and how they walk.
✔️ Muscle tone, balance, coordination and movement.
✔️ Scoliosis Check: Between the ages on 11-14 a scoliosis check is very important. A scoliosis is a curve in the back that develops quite suddenly. It happens in girls more than boys, and can easily be missed when young girls become self-conscious about covering themselves up. For more information, see this blog post here on scoliosis.
Next Step
✔️ As part of a Check we provide advice on posture, ergonomics, footwear, backpack use and anything that relates directly to your child’s lifestyle.
✔️ We also provide referrals to other health professional as needed.
✔️ If specific exercises and/or physical therapy are required, we then organise a full assessment with you.
✔️ We have a special Postural Rehabilitation Program for children (and adults) who require postural education, retraining and rehabilitation. You can learn more about this program including our expertise in computerised balance testing and the neurological rehabilitation of balance and posture here.
Posture Rehabilitation Program
Once you have had a posture check, we may give you some specific exercises to do, recommend a short course of physical therapy or if necessary recommend a postural rehabilitation program.
The two important aspects of postural control, are the ability to stabilise yourself against gravity and the ability to orient yourself to your task at hand.
Our rehabilitation program follows the format of our education program Perfect Posture Online and takes you through a structured method of postural realignment, core control, movement repatterning, flexibility, strengthening, habit re-education and then developing postural fitness. It’s suitable for ages 6-85.
Postural Evaluation
Postural evaluation includes physical assessment and postural analysis with specific software.
Balance Testing
Computerised posturographic analysis enables us to assess the efficiency with which you are able to do this so that we can tailor rehabilitation specific to your condition.
Perfect Posture Online
Perfect Posture Online is our proprietary video education series that teaches habit modification using the data obtained from analysing hundreds of cases using computerised posturography.
Postural Retraining
Our postural retraining includes exercises for flexibility, strength, coordination, balance and habit re-education. It’s a system that we teach utilising the structure of Perfect Posture Online but tailored specifically to your condition.
Dr Tony Tranfield D.O.
is an Osteopath, practicing on the Northern Beaches of Sydney since 1996. He has a special interest in posture, balance and movement, and has developed specific diagnostics, rehabilitation, therapy and education for posture and balance related problems.
You can see his full biography here, or watch the video below that relates specifically to posture.
Postural Correction for Children Tutorial
Interested in re-educating your child yourself? Watch this 30 minute presentation on Posture Correction for Children which explains how to get your child to sit up straight and how to use devices such as phone, tablet, laptop or playstation effectively without causing neck strain.
This presentation references part of our online education program Perfect Posture Online . You don’t have to purchase it, as it is included FREE to patients taking one of our in-house programs.
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21/20 Wellington Street
NARRABEEN NSW 2101
AUSTRALIA
02 9913 7900
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