PT and OT for teen's elbow recovery
Our very active 14 yo son broke his elbow and it required an extensive surgery that included several plates and screws. The surgeon says the next 6 weeks are critical to regaining his function, so we are looking for both PT and OT recommendations who specialize in elbow recovery. Our son is very motivated to get back to using it and especially being able to pitch. It was an adult type break so it could be an adult specialist who is good with teens, or a pediatric specialist in the East Bay (preferably close to Berkeley). Thank you!
Mar 21, 2022
Parent Replies
My very active teen son broke his olecranon almost 2 years ago and it was a long recovery with a ton of OT. We went to Childrens Hosp Oakland, UCSF Sports Physical Therapy Clinic. They were fantastic. All practitioners were excellent and we especially liked David. I don’t know how it will be for your child, but just a heads up that although my son hit all the monthly goals his doctor set, it was still 3-4 months of OT (2-3x a week), followed by home exercises - and from date of injury, a solid 6 months until he could even begin to do sports. It was more like 8-9 months before he really had solid strength again and could safely do sports like mountain biking. The doctors gave us overly optimistic predictions of how fast he’d be truly healed and back to normal. The pins stopped bothering him after about a year. All that said, he’s 100% back to hardcore challenging sports now and has perfect range of motion. It was emotionally draining at the time … Hang in there.