Utilisation du médiateur trampoline dans le polyhandicap : intérêts, évaluation des bénéfices et réflexions

The trampoline is an instrument with great proprioceptive qualities that we wanted to precise more. Our work has concerned five adult patients with cerebral palsy living in a care institution on the Reunion Island. All of them had also anxiety and withdrawal, and three of them had autistic symptoms. They were given weekly and individual psychomotricity sessions with the trampoline during one year, with two evaluations after 6 then 12 months. The results were very positive for all of them, with a significant decrease of the anxiety and the stereotypies, physical and psychological relaxation, the development of new sensorial discoveries and new relationships, and the apparition of voluntary and oriented movements. These benefits can be explained by psychomotor arguments (importance of the tactile and proprioceptive channels in this type of patients' communication, induced relaxation that helps increasing relations) and by psychodynamic arguments (the trampoline's huge capacity of holding, its rocking's resonance with archaic and peaceful sensations, the importance of the proprioceptive signals in the identity's construction). Even if these benefits may be fragile, the trampoline should be more present in medical and social institutions.