What is Deep Pressure Touch, and how does it relate to your Gravity blanket?

Everyone remembers the electric blankets right? It was a staple in my household during the winter season - until they started shorting out and causing fires. You don’t see as many electric blankets anymore, but the new craze is Weighted Blankets! You’ve probably seen ads and commercials for them and may have even bought one from Amazon, but did you know they’ve been used by Occupational Therapists for decades? 

I want to explain from an Occupational Therapist’s point of view of how the basics of weighted clothing and blankets work. To start, we all have Sensory Systems. The usual ones we hear about are vision, olfactory (smell), auditory, gustatory (taste), and tactile (touch). But there are other systems called the Vestibular which dictates your sense of balance, spatial orientation, and Proprioception, which processes your body’s ability to “sense itself” in space or boundaries. It may sound overwhelming, but much of it is instinctual. For example, your ability to follow the Yoga instructor strictly based on their verbal cues is because of your proprioceptive system (your vestibular system helps hold the position). It’s basically your body knowing what to do without seeing yourself, and you have an entire neurological system devoted to that.

To dig even deeper - Deep Pressure Touch (DPT) is a mechanical deformation of the skin coupled with stimulation of the underlying facia and periosteum (Mountcastle & Daruab-Smith, 1968). Basically, it’s a somatosensory sensation similar to a hug, cuddle or squeeze. Hugs are scientifically proven to have a calming effect on the body. Occupational Therapists use DPT for kids with hyperactivity, distractibility and tactile defensiveness for children struggling with sensory processing, and may be applied to people of all conditions for a calming effect. This may not work for everyone, but it is noninvasive and has no adverse side effects, so it’s worth a try!

When the commercial says that the weighted blanket helps you calm down and relax, it’s a technique that Occupational Therapists have been using for over 20 years. With the help of an evaluating occupational therapist, you can understand which system a child needs to be addressed in therapy and if this technique will help with behaviors. It has been shown that children with Autism (part of their diagnosis includes difficulty with sensory processing) who wore weighted vests had an 18-25% increase in on-task completion of fine motor activities (activities that include the small muscles of the hand) (VandenBerg, 2001). The weighted blankets are great for when at home, or in a calm space where one can relax, but OT’s tend to use something that can be worn like a vest, to incorporate it into a functional task. Weighted clothing and blanket’s may not work for every child, but it does seem to improve some children’s performance for school tasks.

The best way for you to understand your child and see what techniques will help your child learn is with an occupational therapy evaluation. This involves a specialized testing of physical skills, social communication, and sensory processing to help understand underlying factors that may be inhibiting learning.

To learn more, email us at symplytherapy@gmail.com or schedule a consultation.

References:

Effects of a Weighted Vest on Attention to Task and Self- Stimulatory Behaviors in Preschoolers with Pervasive Developmental Disorders. (2001). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12959227