This is the title of an article that my son's nutritionist gave me yesterday after his feeding therapy. You can read the entire article here: www.kellydorfman.com/images/The_Best_Dyspraxia_Program_Ever_website.doc
Dyspraxia, literally translated from Latin, means poor coordination. Dyspraxia affects all motor skills and motor planning, which is movement and the brain deciding how to tell the body how to move and in what order to do so. Therefore, complex actions like riding a bike, eating, and speaking are very difficult or impossible for people with this disorder, like my son. The author, Kelly Dorfman, M.S., L.D.N. proposes that having the proper fats in adequate amounts added to the diet can aid in motor planning. Specifically for my three year old, 1000 mg per day of Omega 3 fatty acids from Barleans Omega Swirl EPA/DHA and 400 iu per day of Megafood Vitamin E complete. Apparently, the DHA in most supplements and children's formulas is much too low, and most vitamin supplements don't include all 8 types of Vitamin E. I would have liked to see some studies cited in the article, since the report contains anecdotal evidence only. She reports children with dyspraxia "showing exciting leaps in language complexity", and claims that a doctor cured her three year old of dyspraxia using only Vitamin E. I'm surprised that a medical article offers no mention of studies conducted, research results, or some other peer reviewed evidence. I'm going to give it a try, but I'm also going to do some research on my own to see what studies have been done to demonstrate the evidence of this approach.
Well, I did some research on PubMed, which is an index of journal articles published in various fields of medicine. All the studies published are in nutrition and alternative medicine journals. The results are mixed, but promising. The hypothesis is that there is some metabolic disorder that causes a deficiency of phospholipids, resulting in various disorders and chronic disease. Therefore, supplementation may be a viable treatment option. These studies have only been conducted over the past six years, so the idea is still relatively new.
I'm ordering the supplements today, and I'll report on any changes I see.
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3 comments:
Your last post was from 2009. How did the supplements work for you son?
How has your child progressed with the supplements?
Oh my, I never responded! I'm sorry. We were not able to make any progress with those supplements, and in fact, last year my son became ill and his speech and feeding abilities decreased significantly so he is on a mostly liquid diet and is almost impossible to understand. So, we just keep loving him and getting tested for different metabolic disorders so we can help him as best we can. We also started him in a new school where he is treated very well and nurtured and he is happy. So, that's where we are for now. :)
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