Author Archives: Laura Cifre

Physical Therapy: Making Progress with a Patient with SMA

In Physical Therapy, our goal is to improve independence and return the patient back to within functional limits. With my current patient with SMA, his goal for physical therapy is to improve his core strength and neck strength. I am the first to admit, I was a little frightened…

Recovering from Pneumonia with SMA: How Diaphragmatic Breathing and Abdominal Strengthening Aides Recovery

 According to the article “Spinal Muscular Atrophy1,” “with SMA the spared diaphragm, combined with weakened intercostal muscles, results in paradoxical breathing. Also with the involvement of bulbar motor neurons often tongue fasciculation, poor suck and swallow with increasing swallowing and feeding difficulty overtime.” A cause of death could be…

5 Tips for Physical Therapists Who Treat SMA Patients

So, you received your patient’s medical history form and there it is. Spinal Muscular Atrophy. If you did what I did, you searched and searched the internet and articles for best practices to treat and evaluate this patient. I found out more information on Spinal Muscular Atrophy and the different…