Published: February 28, 2008 10:37 am      

New device giving patients a better chance at recovery

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By LEAH WILLIAMS

leah.williams@register-news.com

MT. VERNON — Even on the first day that he had his stroke, also his 65th birthday, John Dunham of Mt. Vernon has been fighting.

So during the close of his initial occupational therapy sessions, he said he felt disheartened that he may never be able to fully use his limb again.

“They were teaching me how not to use my left arm instead of how to use it,” Dunham said.

Now, just a year and a half later, Dunham is able to towel himself off after a shower, apply deodorant, brush his teeth and go on shopping trips.

He was also able to attend a farm show over the weekend in Louisville, Ky., and even felt well enough to shovel some snow and ice from his driveway.

Crossroads Community Hospital has brought on a revolutionary new therapy tool that provides survivors of neurological injuries the opportunity to regain the strength and function that they had lost during their weakened condition.

This system is able to help patients who were once thought to never be able to receive further treatment.

Developed by occupational therapists a couple of years ago, SaeboFlex uses a spring system that positions the wrist and the fingers into extension in preparation for different activities. The user then can grasp an object by flexing the fingers while the springs assist in releasing the object.

Crossroads Hospital is the only place in the area that offers this service; the closest facility in the region that also has SaeboFlex is in Herrin.

Debbie Phillips is a certified occupational therapy assistant at Crossroads. She said she was impressed with the quick-acting results that SaeboFlex has been able to produce.

“The improvement is fast,” Phillips said. “They are able to use the affected limb more, even as a stabilizer or as a way to hold the mat down when ironing.”

Occupational therapist Debbie Kessler and Phillips were trained in September on how to implement the SaeboFlex system into their therapy sessions, and both women said they were able to see a vast improvement in the patients’ development in just the 45-minute demonstration.

Whereas most patients are told that they have “plateaued” and are unable to regain any more movement in the damaged area, SaeboFlex boasts that it is able to provide help for individuals who have up to 20 years in post-neurological injury background.

“I have told people that,” Kessler said. “And to see it proven wrong is just amazing.”

Kessler said there are five patients currently using the SaeboFlex glove, and all have seen progress since first placing the therapeutic tool over their hands.

Kessler also said she believes so strongly in SaeboFlex that she has told previous patients of hers that they should check out the system in order to help with their recovery.

Debi Richardson, director of marketing for the hospital, said she wished the procedure had been developed in time to help her father, Arnold Ethridge, who died in 1994, six years after suffering from a stroke.

“For him to be able to brush his own teeth, it would have given him so much confidence and independence,” Richardson said.

His therapists say with each session Dunham gains a bit more strength than what he came in with. But the retired railroad worker said he believes anything is possible.

“Give me a little bit,” he said, “and I will be able to do anything.”

For more information about the SaeboFlex procedure, log on to the company’s Web site, www.saebo.com.