Any advice on bikes for my toddler who has spastic diplegia

myjakeys

I have a little boy who is 6 next month and he has spastic diplegia. He has a bike that he is unable to ride yet which has stablizers. Last night he wanted to go on it so i put him on it and he tried to ride it . I was absolutely delighted but he did nt have enough strength in his legs to push the pedals. I was just wondering if anyone knows if their is any special bikes available for children with cerebral palsy. Any help would be much appreciated xxxxx

b8s

Hi,
there are lots of different special needs bikes on the market. We found talking to our OT about what we wanted for our daughter was great and she was able to organise reps to come out so that our daughter could try them for suitability. They are more expensive but you can apply for charity funding to help.
Your OT might be able to suggest an adaptation to the bike you already have which could help.
Charlotte

myjakeys

Hiya there, thanks for your reply. Can i just ask how old is your daughter and can she walk. I m only asking cause my son is 6 next month and can walk . The other week when he tried to ride his bike, he found it really really difficult to push the pedals and i thought oh well maybe the pedals were stuck or he needs a bigger bike , although i did think for a split sec maybe he would need a special bike but then that thought went straight out of my head. I am a member of another forumn and asked the same question as i asked on here and i got a reply from a woman whos child also has spastic diplegia . She put in her reply pretty much the same as yourself but she did put that some children with spastic diplegia can t pedal because of the stiffness in their ankles . It was weird cause i never even thought of that because like i say my son can walk but it made so much sense the fact that cause his ankles are fused that he would not be able to pedal. I am gonna speak to my sons OT and see what she says. Would you suggest me trying him on another normal ( sorry i hate that word) bike just to see if it made any difference. Also my son needs splints soon i am just waiting for an appointment to get him measured. Reply soon, thanks xxxxx

b8s

Hi,
my daughter is nearly four. She can't walk, but she can pedal. Her trike has special braces which attatch to her legs to keep them in the correct position for pedalling. I wouldn't keep trying different bikes without speaking to your OT as it may be that you can get a standard childs bike which could be adapted. Our OT fitted straps to a standard baby trike when our daughter was younger, so we were able to delay getting specialist equipment.
hope this helps.
Charlotte

JDWilson

Hi there My daughter has SD CP too she rode a two wheeler with stabelizers for a whole approx by age 6 she was getting stuck and falling off she was leaning too much on one side and unbalancing. She really wanted to ride a bike like the other kids. We ended up trying a Trike from Freedom It was big and bulky But RED she loved it. It was difficult for her to ride we had to learn her the pedals go round and round so we held her feet on. We pulled the trike and pushed it took her out every day and she improved so much she entered a race with other children that were disabled I didn't know if she would manage the mile but she did and came 2nd she raised over

Chris1959

I don't know if you have tried them but there is a company in Glasgow called Theraplay who have new and used/ ex demo tricyles for children from 2 to adult.
Their website is www.theraplay.co.uk
Hope it helps you.

Hextal

Hi

At the risk of demonstrating my newness to these things; have you tried propping/lifting the back of the bike up so that the wheel is slightly off the ground to see if he can pedal when there is no resistance.

If he can, a cheap fix may be to simply tweak the gearing?

I'm assuming it's a fixed gear bike, so I wonder whether you could add a larger rear sprocket (more teeth) so that it is less effort to make the bike move.