When Sawyer received his adapted bike, he couldn’t stop smiling.
The 11-year-old from Perry, Georgia, has cerebral palsy and is mostly non-verbal, but words weren’t necessary to convey the impact the bike had on him from the first moment he saw it.
“He was pointing at it and trying to grab whatever he could on the bike before we could even get him on there,” Lindsey, Sawyer’s mom, said of her son’s reaction to receiving his adapted bike in 2022. “He just took to that thing. It was a was a little difficult to get him strapped in because he was just so excited and ready to go. He wanted to get moving.”
In 2021, Georgia Power began an initiative with Freedom Concepts, which has 30 years of experience designing customized, adaptive bikes, and Wellspring Wellness Center in Houston County, Georgia, which identifies candidates to receive the bikes amongst its patients on a waiting list.
Wellspring Wellness Center physical therapist Beth Bryan sees a host of physical benefits from her patients who use adaptive bikes including increased range of motion, strength, head control, reciprocal movement of the legs, and endurance, as well as improved cardiovascular and gastrointestinal health. The psychological benefits associated with the bikes are also significant, according to Bryan, providing her patients a feeling of normalcy and inclusion in a traditional, childhood activity in which they otherwise couldn’t participate.
Despite the indisputable health benefits, there are many cases in which insurance may not cover adaptive bikes for Georgians with disabilities. Consequently, there are many Georgia children who would benefit from the use of adaptive bikes, but their families can't afford the significant cost, each bike ranging from $4,500 to $5,000.
Before teaming up with Georgia Power, Bryan raised money through raffles and donations to buy bikes for Wellspring Wellness Center patients like Sawyer. In her career before Wellspring in the corporate hospital system, securing an adaptive bike for a child with disabilities was nearly impossible.
"I've been a physical therapist since 2008 and I worked in the corporate hospital system up until Wellspring opened in 2020 and in all those years, I had one kid get a bike," Bryan said. "There's so much red tape. We would apply for all these different grants and still, the request just sat there. By joining Georgia Power, we're able to get the bikes much, much quicker."
Lindsey said Sawyer waited two years for a bike until one was donated by a Georgia Power volunteer group in 2022. Since receiving his bike, Lindsey has noticed significant progress in her son’s physical strength. Due to cerebral palsy, Sawyer’s muscles can tighten to the point of severe pain. Constant motion and regular physical therapy are consequently vital but difficult since any activity longer than 30 minutes fatigues.
Any activity except for seated exercise on his adapted bike.
“The great thing about the bike is it's moving those muscles without him having to hold up the rest of his body, so he can ride his bike for as long as he wants and he doesn't feel those effects,” Lindsey said. “It has been part of the reason that we have been able to move towards walking even longer because of that extra strength and just the ability for his body just to be used to moving and just you know just tightening all the way up.”
Lindsey said Sawyer’s experience with his adapted bike has been impactful enough that she wants other families to see what resources are available to their children.
“I think sometimes parents of children with disabilities feel defeated and so to show parents that if you keep pushing and trying and really doing everything you can, these are the kind of things that your kid could possibly do,” Lindsey said. “Until they saw pictures I posted myself, a lot of special needs families had never heard that they could get a bike. So we want to get the word out there for other people the opportunities that are available for them.”
For more information on how to donate or information on scheduling an appointment for a child in your life, visit Wellspring Wellness Center's website. To learn more about adapted bikes, visit Freedom Concepts' website.