Today in email I was asked by a mom with a new diagnosis of Truncal Hypotonia to explain it in layman’s terms for her. She’s new to all of this and is frightened – and I remember that feeling well. It’s been ages since I did a Terminology Tuesday, and today is not Tuesday, but I thought it would make a great post, since I display clearly on my site that Angel has this and what it is may not be clear. I’ve already answered this directly to that mom in email, but I’m making a post now too 😀
Hypotonia is a muscular condition. It means that the muscles do not have the tone of normal muscles – they aren’t as strong or flexible. This is often characterized by a rigidity. In our case, even changing a diaper caused discomfort for Angel. She had Torticollis (definition on Tues.) as a baby, then her arms were stuck in the airplane reflex (arms raised tight and bent at her sides) until we finally got her crawling – and even then we could not get her to use her left arm to reach for anything.
Truncal means the torso. The hips/stomach/chest area is the weakest. The trunk supports us in just about everything from sitting to moving and walking. Angel’s hips and chest are her weakest area, most especially on the left side.
I hope this helps! I’m off to research another disorder to gain an understanding of it before I email this mom back!!
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Totaly understand were your coming from my son was diagnosed about 3 months ago with cerebral palsy and scoliosis and now they doing tests for CF due to his lung issues and he’s only 23months. He has had a lung sequestration removed at 9months and in and out of hospital and the whole time they said he was fine and people would say he looks so happy though. Of course he looks happy he has not known any different this is his life, he doesn’t no what it feels like to walk with out falling over or that his right arm should be as strong as his left. He just embraces life as he knows it.