From the smile on Athena Mosley's face.....you would think she's at Disney World......instead the happiest place on earth for this toddler is in the arms of her acupuncturist.....Brian Jackson.
"The key to infantile twayna is that your movements have to be fast, gentle, yet firm and sustained."
Jackson has been treating stroke patients for years.... but Athena.....just a month shy of her third birthday.... is by far his youngest.
"Her movements are much more coordinated than they were before."
Athena has quadriplegic cerebral palsy. Not only does she have limited mobility.... she's not vocal because her airway is collapsed.
Hoping to improve her quality life.... her mother started researching the benefits of acupuncture.
"I was like I know that acupuncture is used around the world for cerebral palsy, but I was trying to find someone to do it here. But I didn't want to have to go to china and luckily China came to me."
"It's got a 5,000 year history........It can treat a myriad of different conditions because it works with the bodies basic systems."
This was Athena before she started acupuncture....her mother says she unresponsive.....muscles tight, rigid, and unable to participate.
Now more than two months into treatment, Athena has blossomed.
"She hadn't been able to bring her hands together at that point, and she started clapping and she started waving. So it takes her a second to think about, but she likes okay I can do that, let me try. Before it was she would just watch people do things."
"I was skeptical at first. I figured it was just parents being parents, and that nothing really happened in one treatment, but as we continued I was able to see it too, that she was much more cognizance, and that she was really paying much more attention to her own body and beginning to feel her limbs again."
"Before we were getting five degrees and now we're up to about 10 to 15. It's almost a fully working ankle."
Much of Athena's treatment is acupressure or a deep massage.....but they do use needles to loosen up her stiff muscles.
A little discomfort.....and quickly back to comfortable.
"It’s what she needs. We come she's happy. She's healthy. When she leaves she's more relaxed and every day is something new."
"You are just working with the bodies’ natural ability to heal itself and with the immune system and nervous system and the endocrine system."
An adult can have up to 400 acupuncture points many more than children, and the number of needles used for treatment depends on the severity of the condition. For example a stroke patient with paralysis in the leg could need up to 10 to 15 needles per limb. In Athena's case they are using five to six.
"Right now she tends to lead with her head and her hands. If she wants to go somewhere, so its about re-teaching her and retraining her to know I need to move my foot when I want to go in that direction."
"We can help her, help herself."
While some experts have told Crystal Mosley her
Daughter will never walk....she says the sky is the limit....Athena has her sights set on dancing.
