Bobath therapy

The Bobath method for patients with neurological conditions has been developed since the 1950s. Physiotherapist Berta Bobath proposed a new approach to the rehabilitation of people with spastic disorders: finding positions that reduce pathological tonic reflexes and muscle spasticity and make controlled movement easier from a correct starting position. Neurophysiologist Karl Bobath gave the method its theoretical basis, and the principle of building movements and postures that lower pathological reflex activity is now used widely in physiotherapy.

Bobath therapy is not the name of a single procedure but a method: the neurodevelopmental approach NDT-Bobath, which combines correct positioning, the child's active participation in movement and the transfer of new skills into everyday life. At our centre sessions are led by a therapist certified by the European Bobath association.

The goal of Bobath therapy is for the child to actively learn new motor skills and, through neuroplasticity, form new neural connections in the brain. The therapist works step by step through progressively higher positions, from correct lying to standing, and the main ways of moving: crawling and then walking.

The therapist works through three key control zones for movement and posture: the head, the shoulder girdle and the pelvic girdle. The child's movements are never fully passive. Passive handling is limited to one zone at a time, and slow movement that waits for the child's cooperation lets the child's own active movement emerge, with the parts of the body furthest from the point of contact showing the most activity. By changing the zone of influence the therapist stimulates the child as a whole, external help is gradually reduced, and once the child uses these movement patterns spontaneously, new connections have been formed in the brain and are reinforced as a lasting gain.