Case Study

Ezekial goes by the name Zeke. He is a 12-year-old African American boy who suffered a stroke when he was 6. It is unclear why he had a stroke but he is medically healthy now. He does have residual problems from the stroke including double vision (he usually wears a patch over his right eye). He has the ability to learn new things but needs VERY simple directions and lots of time to practice.

His standing balance is fair. He walks with a cane and still limps. His right arms and leg are paralyzed. He uses his left arm to move the right one and rarely uses it at all, although it does have a little movement.

He is encouraged in occupational and physical therapies to use his right arm and leg. He complains about therapy being boring and he doesn’t want to participate. The therapists wish there was something e would find fun and would be a good therapeutic activity.

Our Solution

We wanted to take the small movements that Zeke would be able to do and translate them into larger actions. By using switches in traditional occupational therapy equipment and hooking them up to a computer, when Zeke completes a repetition of the exercise, something exciting happens on the screen.

When Zeke performs the horizontal sanding exercises to facilitate his wrist movements, with each repetition of action a racecar moves a little along a racetrack and the sound of an engine revving is emitted. If there is a long period of time between repetitions, the racecar slows down and will eventually stop.

When Zeke does the squeezing activities to improve his grip strength, every time he squeezes balloons will be released on screen accompanied by music. The harder he squeezes, the more balloons are released.

The other occupational therapy exercise we focused on was cycling. The cycling is used to improve the lower extremity range of motion and can also be made to be resistive to build strength. With every revolution Zeke does on the cycle, bicyclists race across the screen and loud cheering can be heard.