Powered Orthosis for Children with Muscular Dystrophy
Investigators:
Background:
Children with neuromuscular weakness have difficulty in moving their arms and performing activities of daily living. This project addresses these concerns with the development of WREX - a powered orthosis that helps the arm move in space.
What We're Doing:
The persons arm is placed in WREX, which then allows them to navigate their arm in space with their residual strength. WREX is primarily intended for people with muscular dystrophy and spinal muscular atrophy. People with these conditions lose the ability to place their arm in space due to weakness. The distal muscles are less affected and sensation remains intact.
Testing of WREX comprises user trials in his or her home along with controlled laboratory experiments. The subject is first fitted with a custom unit. This comprises a wheelchair attachment, arm brace, and length and stiffness adjustments. The subject is then tested without the orthosis on the Jebsen test of hand function. The Jebsen is a standardized instrument comprising of a series of timed tasks. These tasks are indicative of activities of daily living such as feeding, writing and picking up objects.
Some of What We've Found:
The Jebsen includes tests related to small object manipulation. These consists of picking up bottle tops, paper clips, and coins and placing them in a can. The simulated feeding has the subject picking up dried beans with a spoon and putting them in the same can. These tasks showed more than a 50% reduction in time to perform the task.
Some of the subjective comments were that they could now raise their hand in school; they could feed themselves various foods they were unable to eat before, such as spaghetti. They could perform activities such as building legos, playing swords and throwing a baseball. The results presented here are early in the testing process; however, they provide an indication of the potential success of this type of intervention. The clinical trials are ongoing and should yield statistically significant results with the use of WREX.
