In the first week, it was merely to get him on the belt and to be comfortable on it, without it switching on the power. So, it was just to step up on it, step down from it, pretend to walk on it like how papa does his exercise etc. I think that was done twice in the entire week.
In the second week, I switched on the power. It was up to him if he wanted to get on the moving belt. He did very briefly. Then he wanted to watch the belt roll under, and to watch the embossed words on the belt move. I didnt expect that, but whatever! So long as he's interested, not scared of it, I'm supervising and he's safe. I think that was also done twice in that week.
In the third week, things started going. On the first day of that week, he walked on it for a grand total of 2 minutes! The second day, it was... 1 minute. Not good. Third day, decided to place laptop in front of treadmill and pull up some car related videos from YouTube - car races, car crashes, car accidents. He requested for car accidents - it wasnt my idea. Hey, whatever it takes!
Problem with that is that the running time of the videos are very short, e.g. 2-5minutes and broadband in Malaysia often feels like dial up 38kB. It was a challenge to get him walking for more than 10min without stopping. Note those 3 days weren't 3 consecutive days.
I had to get my helper involved. I would have my arms around his chest to act as a safety harness. She would move his legs in the correct gait - heel toe motion, leg striding to the front and not to the side, longer stride and not a trotting motion. It required both of us to be in a bit of awkward position. I'd be straddling across the width of the treadmill with knees and torso a bit bent. She'd be seated on the floor, to the side of him with arms stretched across to reach both his legs.
Back to the thinking board on how to achieve a longer walking session. Perhaps a portable DVD player? Scouted around for prices. Too expensive. Then realised I could use my laptop. How silly not to realise it earlier cos by which time, it was into week 4.
Left: Wooden shelf from Ikea across 2 chairs = bench
Right: 2 large containers from Ikea = table
Happy that we didnt need to buy anything new for this exercise
Now that we had a better feel of this, we set up a makeshift bench for me to sit and a make-do table for the laptop. He is now able to hit the 30min mark, but with several breaks in between. I reckon if we can keep this up regularly, he should be able to have fewer breaks, and be able to increase the walking speed to a running pace - a slow process but we'll get there eventually. Currently we alternate between a moderate walk and brisk walk speed.
I now believe this treadmill training can improve his gait. When we were doing this regularly, before I came down with food poisoning, I noticed that he was able to do the heel toe motion with his right leg (the problematic leg) after the first maybe 15 minutes on the treadmill, without my helper assisting him. We still have a long way to go, but I feel we're definitely on the right track and I'm happy enough with that.
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