I’ve done a few sessions of both Occupational and Physical Therapies thus far and both are going well. Time spent at the Shepherd Center is always time well spent.
Rebecca, my occupational therapist, works with me to improve and/or maintain the skills I need to function regularly everyday and as such, the care of the left arm and hand fall into the OT range. I don’t know that I really ever explained what has happened to my left arm…just like my left leg, it is spastic. The muscles used to open my left hand are tight and tense, hence the reason it always curls up and constantly looks like I’m forming a fist (the good news here is that it doesn’t lock up like that; it’s very pliant and I can manipulate it if I want). The same stands true for the muscles along the outer arm so the arm is hardly ever really straight and if I’m not focusing on it at all (or not holding the walker), it is almost always completely bent. Besides the normal exercises of moving something from one place to the next, which is so extremely frustrating when u have a “pok hand”, I have used the Functional Electrical Stimulation Bicycle. The bike works similarly to my bionic foot by stimulating the nerves in my hand and arm to encourage them to function normally. Rebecca placed electrodes on my wrists, forearms, biceps, triceps and the back of my shoulder blades, strapped my hand in place and as the bike started moving so did I to power it thru (pedalling with the left arm). I’m sure that I would not have lasted as long as I did without the stimulation and my movements would not have been as fluid. Shepherd Center offers membership in an MS Wellness program where one can go use the facility and all the equipment on a regular basis and I sure wish I can join to take advantage of everything they have to offer consistently but alas, it’s only available and staffed M-F 8-5, so while I may be able to make it work, it’ll take a Herculean effort of coordination etc to do so.
here’s a short clip of it in action:
the other piece of equipment that I used (and already told u about) is the Bertec Balance Plate. I stand in front of an open dome if u will on a platform that has sensors to pick up how I’m standing to measure how balanced I am. Additionally, the inside of the dome is a screen on which moving lines, moving circles etc can be displayed. Is my weight distributed evenly between both legs? When the platform moves, how do I react to get back in balance? When the display changes, do I lose my balance and how quickly do I regain it? You get the picture…some of the exercises were easy enough to do and then there was this one below…lol. In the grand scheme of things, I didn’t do so terribly badly but multitasking is when I tend to lose “form” and my reaction to things getting out of whack needs some work (it cemented one thing that I tell people all the time – I shouldn’t laugh and walk at the same time).
I wish I had some other pictures of the entire machine but say what.
The goal of that exercise was to keep that yellow star in the middle of the grocery aisle as I moved thru. Started off easy enough and then boxes started appeared in the aisle that I had to avoid hitting and wouldn’t u know it some of the boxes were moving side to side. When Joy, the PT asked me what dairy products I saw on the shelves, I said “wait? Wha???” Multitasking! Now I had to maintain my balance, lookout for and avoid hitting the boxes AND keep an eye out for dairy products? I told her that I think I’d seen a fish fly by! At some point the platform may have started moving too. I worked my ass off yesterday morning, no doubt. In fact, it was funny because by the time I reached back home and throughout the day yesterday, I noticed that I really wasn’t keeping my balance very well but that was no surprise really, cuz those muscles put in some good work that morning.
Alright. Well I gone so. thanks for passing thru…as u were!
