QUEST Follow Up

Yesterday afternoon we had our follow up QUEST with Ann, our OT. Summer was not in the best form. She seemed to be a little tired and she is getting over a cold. Never a great combination. When she got about 90% of the way through, she decided she was ‘done’.

Ann was as patient as ever (bless her!), and we persevered through as much of it as we could. The remaining two skills assessments I took home with me to complete over the weekend. We were able to get her to complete a few more by me bribing her with a gift that was waiting in the car, that my visiting friend had given me that morning. (Thank you Carolyn!)

The QUEST – Quality of Upper Extremity Skills Test is a collection of fine and gross motor demonstrations. This is quite different from the AHA – Assistive Hand Assessment that we completed at WCH, which is more of a free flowing play assessment, that encourages and measures two handed interactions and spontanious actions with little or no verbal cues.

For the QUEST the OT asks and cues Summer “Let’s try to pick up these peas with your right hand and put them in this jar.” Where with the AHA, one of the games is rolling marbles, several at a time to see if Summer will try to pick up the marbles with both hands without verbal cue.

Ann did not to review the pre-cast QUEST results so that we were not skewed by those scores. Some of the major progress we saw was how straight Summer was able to get her right arm, with a reach, and hand open. Her posture was improved as well. Her weight bearing strength and ability to reach with her right while weight bearing on left, while on all fours was also really good. Once we complete the last couple demonstrations on the weekend, Ann will score and compare it with the pre-cast assessment.

Summer and I also met our new Rehab Assistant Colleen, who will be starting to visit Summer at daycare next week. She is very likable with a great positive energy, and she is excited to be visiting Summer.

I spoke to Summer's daycare director yesterday and we are looking at also having two 1:1 hour sessions weekly for Summer and her teacher Jody to work on retaining her skills and movement quality that she learned during the casting. We have kept the cast so that Summer can wear it during these sessions. – I know she is going to be thrilled with that – not so much…

We are looking forward to a quiet Mother’s day weekend. Dinner out tonight and friends over on Sunday.

Happy Mother's Day Moms!