what is the difference between hydro therapy and swimming in a hydro therapy pool?

[2shoes]

since dd was a tot she has swam weekly (term time) in a hydro therapy pool, but she has only ever had a couple of hydro therapy sessions.
what is the difference?

I think with hydro therapy you would have a qualified physio type person guiding you through exercises to do in the water, where as i imagine swimming in the hydro therapy pool woul be having a nice kick around in a nice warm pool, but not as focussed iyswim.

makes sense. so the therapy is more for those who need it and perhaps have less movemnet

My DGS has hydrotherapy and it is a weekly session guided by a physio doing child friendly exercises which are basically physiotharapy exercises in water. ie stretching, promoting flexibility, building up weak muscles. He loves it and the water is so warm it feels like getting into a big bath. Also lots of social interaction with other littluns

ds2 had hydrotherapy when a physio & swim teacher and parents were in the water, we did lots of playing but also lots of stretching, ds2 just tolerates stretching much more in water, even now we only do his stretches while he is in the bath.

He also had sessions in the hydro pool at the SN school with the sn swim teacher, similar stuff to the therapy sessions but more play type stuff and less hands on stretching.

The pre-5 SN kids locally 'went' to a swimming class run by physio. It was really just lots of exercises and play in water.

The health board are stopping the class because 'it's not hydrotherapy' and therefore not something that physios should be doing.

We only just found out that the relatively new high school in the town has a hydrotherapy pool that we may be able to access. But, the council (who own it) want the physios to sign off that it will be used for individuals for hydrotherapy whereas the physios won't agree to sign off any exercise sheets for any of the kids so that we can access it, because accoridng to their professional institute, if they were to class something as 'hydrotherapy' that would mean they would need to monitor what we were all doing with our kids, keep exercise plans updated etc, and they don't have the resources to do this.

It's a nightmare that this resource is sitting there partly unused because neither flippin side wants to risk any extra work and/or disagreements about exactly what 'hydrotherapy' is. We just see the oppotunity to access a new, quiet pool with good, private changing facilities and avoid the hell of the local, run-down swimming pool!