United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

has anyone ever had serial casting done on a bpi arm? anna's therapiest was entertaining the thought of serial casting her arm to see if it would help with straighting.. anna (5 years old) tends to keep her arm slightly bent although out to the side.. if anyone has had this done could you share the results you got from it or if it helped.. all input would be greatly appreciated..
thanks marg & anna

Hi Marge,
I am not sure exactly what you mean by SERIAL casting....I wonder if that is what you call what my daughter did....so I'll explain what we did for her, in case that is it.

I am mom to Jill now age 21, born severe LOBPI. Every night for more years than I can count, 10+years I would guess, at bedtime I would put on her LONG ARM splint. She only wore the LONG ARM splint when she slept.

It would be re-made every so often if she grew. The splint went to just under her arm pit, all the way to her hand. Depending on how they made it, sometimes she would wear her hand/wrist splint & the long arm splint at the same time. Other times the LONG ARM splint was made all in one to include her hand/wrist and the one piece went from the palm of her hand all the way up to her arm pit.

Jill still has a little bend to her elbow, but we are not real big into surgery or "LOOKS" so for all of us.....Jill is just fine with that little bend in her elbow. It was her Orthopedic Doctor that suggested the long arm splint. It was my thinking that her arm could draw up all the way into "L" if she didn't have it.

we are considering serial casting as well. I have heard some very positive things about it. Anyone here tried it?

We did serial casting with my daughter who is now 7 1/2 when she was 5. The orginal plan was to cast with botex injections. The doctor felt that she did not need the botex just the serial casting. I don't think it did anything. She sleeps with a brace just at night to keep her arm straight. She has a little bend in the elbow but we are tring not to get more of a bend then that.

Yes, we tried serial casting when my son was 4 or so. Can't say that it helped. If anything, it was slight and it was temporary.
Mostly, it was just irritating for him and made things more difficult for me. I could have gotten past that if it'd been effective, but it just wasn't.

We did serial splinting, we used the stiff splint at night only so that the muscles could still work during the day and he could use his arm. We just kept making the splint straighter and straighter as the arm got straighter. Now I alternate - one night a straight elbow splint with the supination strap over top from the ark brace and the alternate night a bent arm external roation, supination splint. We gained full supination and the arm has gained almost straight and the external rotation is about half way there.

I should also mention that while we have the straight arm splint on we also gradually tethered the arm in closer to his side as he could no longer bring his arm close to his side- so now he can get the arm virtually straight and flat against his side.