Patients can gain motion with device

Linda Washington picks up a green block with her left hand, guides it over a plastic box and drops it in, then laughs.

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Annette M. Drowlette/Staff

Paula Myers (left), an occupational therapist at Walton Rehabilitation Outpatient Therapy Center, helps stroke victim Linda Washington with the Bioness H200 unit on her arm. With the treatment, she is now able to use her left hand again.

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"It feels good to put something in your hand and hold it," said Mrs. Washington, who suffered a massive stroke in October 2007 and is still regaining the use of her left arm and hand.

A device strapped onto her forearm and hand is helping her. The Ness H200 from Bioness is allowing Walton Rehabilitation Hospital to call back stroke patients and help them gain better function in damaged hands.

After a stroke, signals in the brain can become scrambled or mixed, leaving muscles useless or sometimes rigid, said occupational therapist Paula Myers.

The device uses electrical stimulation to help shock the chronically clenched muscles that force Mrs. Washington's hand into a fist.

"It's what we call a neuromuscular re-education," Mrs. Myers said. "It's educating those muscles on what they are supposed to do."

As she turns up the stimulation on the device that wraps around the back of Mrs. Washington's left hand and forearm, two knuckles on that hand start to rise out of the fist.

"There it goes," Mrs. Washington says as she begins to grasp the fingers with her right hand and straighten them out.

When she came back to Walton in December, the hand was essentially nonfunctional, Mrs. Myers said. But since then, Mrs. Washington has made some progress.

"Right now, she can use the hand, without the (Bioness) unit, to hold her pill bottles," Mrs. Myers said. "What else?"

"I squeeze my toothpaste, put on my lotion," Mrs. Washington said.

"I'm just so excited I do so good on it. Without that shocking, I'll be like I was before."

Regaining her left hand has also given her a clearer view of what matters in life, she said.

"People take a lot of things for granted, but I don't anymore, now that I can do some things with it," Mrs. Washington said. "I can hold a cup now. That's good. I can bring it up to my mouth and drink like that. Just so many things have changed since I've been using the Bioness."

And a big part of that is Mrs. Washington herself, Mrs. Myers said.

"Everything I asked her to do at home, to go home and try, she goes home and tries," she said.

Reach Tom Corwin at (706) 823-3213 or tom.corwin@augustachronicle.com.