THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: What has acupressure therapy got to do with mental disability? A visit to the Sathram School, East Fort, would have given you the answer. The school played host to a two-day programme organised by Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) which saw training being given to teachers and parents on using acupressure to help mentally challenged children.
The sessions held on Monday and Tuesday saw teachers from four Block Resource Centres (BRCs) of SSA project in the district and parents of mentally challenged children from the BRCs learning acupressure treatment which has been proved effective in children with autism, epilepsy, hyperactivity, cerebral palsy, insomnia and related disorders.
‘’These teachers will pass on the knowledge and information they gained to the lower levels. The parents, on their part, will be advised to give treatment to their wards at home on a regular and disciplined basis. The programme is being done after conducting training and follow-up study which revealed that acupressure can go a long way in minimising the extent of disability,” said Anitha V S, programme officer of Integrated Education for Disabled Children (IEDC), which is a major intervention programme of SSA to educate and support children with special needs.
It was the first batch of teachers which attended the two-day training. Of the 108 resource teachers, 36 attended the training, which had Sam John M, acupressurist and faculty with the Government School for the Deaf and Dumb, Jagathy; Satheesh, a teacher with Government School for the Blind and Lallu Susan of Swasthya Acupressure Centre, Kottayam, handling the sessions. The remaining teachers will be given training in batches soon, Anitha said. Acupressure is an ancient healing system in which key healing points on hands and legs are pressed with fingers to stimulate body’s natural self-curative abilities. When a body part has an ailment, the corresponding point on hands/ legs will feel shooting pain when you press that particular point. Gradual and continued application of pressure on the healing points will reduce the pain and cure the ailment.
The mental disabilities in children are mainly owing to improper functioning of brain, pituitary, pineal, thyroid and adrenal glands. In acupressure, specific points on the limbs are stimulated to balance the production of hormones thereby bringing about significant changes in patients.
“There won’t be any side-effects, since no medicines are used in the treatment. The treatment is also inexpensive. The parents who undergo training have been advised to carry out the therapy on their wards for half-an-hour in the morning and evening. Within two years, there will be significant changes in the children and there is enough proof for that. The significant aspect is that extreme patience, an indomitable spirit and uninterrupted training is expected of those who do the acupressure therapy, be it teachers or parents,” said Sam John. In the case of mentally challenged children, the changes will be slow, but there is hope, he added. It is easy to bring about improvement in the case of children who are young, especially those aged below five.
Acupressure has been accepted by the World Health Organisation as an alterative treatment method such as homoeopathy and Ayurveda. SSA had conducted a similar programme in the capital two years ago, but no follow-up was done. The recent programme is the first one in the district this academic year. The initiative has already been undertaken in Kollam, Kottayam, Alappuzha, Kozhikode, Wayanad and Idukki.