EDMONTON – A state of the art system, used by hockey and football players to sharpen their reflexes, is now playing a big role in the rehabilitation process of those who have suffered strokes and brain injuries.
The $12,000 Dynavision Visual-Motor Reaction training device has been adapted to help those patients who have developed a condition called “visual neglect” as a result of their injury.
“People can still see to the left hand side after a stroke or brain injury, but some people have difficulty paying attention, and their brain does not want to acknowledge it,” explains Quentin Ranson, a rehabilitation technology leader at Edmonton’s Glenrose Hospital.
As a result, the patients end up seeing everything on their right hand side, sometimes even ignoring their own arms. So the Dynavision machine is used to essentially help re-train their brain and eyes. It almost looks like a game, with users having to press buttons that light up on different parts of a grid as fast as they can, all while staying focused on the middle to say the number that appears on a screen. The results are then measured and given to patients as an indication of their progress.
Mell Snyder, who suffered a stroke in March, has been using the innovative device for the past five weeks; and already, he and his doctors have been seeing a difference. He’s received his drivers licence back, and has hope that with some continued practice, he’ll be able to return to work as a heavy machine operator – a job that requires precise motor skills.
“Yeah I worked all my life and I want go back to work. I’m bored! ‘Cause I like working,” he says with a laugh. “With more therapy, places like this, it will come along.”
Ranson believes that while systems like this one won’t replace traditional forms of therapy, they can serve as a very useful supplement by helping push patients to the next level in their rehabilitation journey.
“A lot of the technologies help us take those clients who we might have had to sort of send home because we didn’t have anything to push them further, and now we have something to offer them,” he explains. “And somebody who would have stood at the table for 10 minutes, now stands for 30 minutes, breaking a sweat, they sit down, you say ‘you know, Mel, you were standing for 30 minutes!’ ‘I was? No way!'”
The fact that the therapy is fun also helps, Synder says.
“There’s a lot of kids who would like to have them to play on.”
With files from Su-Ling Goh, Global News
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