Guitar Playing Again a Real Possibility With the Help of the Tutor System

ROBERT REMINGTON writes in the CALGARY HERALD on OCTOBER 8, 2011 about Al Hubbard.
Comatose and written off for dead six years ago by the medical establishment, “Iron” Al Hubbard strapped on his guitar and played me a couple of tunes this week – a remarkable accomplishment, considering the seemingly hopeless vegetative state from which he has emerged.
When we met a year ago, the retired teacher and former Ironman triathlete could barely even hold his guitar. Today, he can coax his stiff fingers to form chords. On Wednesday, he will perform two songs at an annual fundraising breakfast for the Association for the Rehabilitation of the Brain Injured (ARBI), a Calgary non-profit organization that has slowly nurtured him back from the debilitating effects of a severe stroke.
“He has come miles,” says Jane Dafoe, ARBI’s fund development manager.
In 2005, Hubbard, a former French immersion teacher and six-time finisher of the Penticton, B.C., Ironman competition, suffered a stroke that left him in a vegetative coma for two weeks. “I died three times,” he says of the trio of attempts to revive him when his heart stopped.
Doctors began to discuss end-of-life options with his family, who refused to give up. Instead, they got him into ARBI, which has been working with the profoundly brain injured since 1978.
Brain injury rehabilitation is often slow and unpredictable, as the arduous recovery of Pittsburgh Penguin star Sidney Crosby has shown. Hubbard, despite his tremendous will to improve, admits he is getting frustrated.
“It’s not going fast enough for me,” he said as we sat together this week, restringing his guitar. Hubbard, who recently turned 66, remains determined to one day compete in another triathlon. He will soon begin bicycle rehabilitation and hopes to ride the Penticton triathlon route next August on a three-wheeled competitive tricycle.
While the extent of recovery from a brain injury can’t be forecast, Hubbard has several key elements going for him.
“Alan has motivation, he works hard, and has incredible family support,” says his physiotherapist, Nancy Pullan.
Hubbard’s speech is much stronger than it was a year ago. He can walk short distances with assistance and can read words on a printed page for up to 30 minutes.
“The ability to read will give him tremendous quality of life,” says occupational therapist Ana Gollega. “We attempt to identify a person’s passions. Alan was a teacher, so reading is very important to him.”
His guitar was another key element in his rehabilitation. Beginning with exercises using clothespins to build strength, Hubbard can now play three simple chords. Once unable to even swallow, and completely non-verbal when he arrived at ARBI, he can now sing complete songs.
About 10,000 Albertans suffer a brain injury each year, according to ARBI. I was one of them two years ago when a ski accident left me unconscious and suffering from a severe concussion that abated after about a month.
I was lucky and didn’t need rehab. In Calgary, help is readily available to those who are severely disabled and show progress in the first six months. But those who remain in one of several states known collectively as “disorders of consciousness” often fall through cracks. These slower-to-recover individuals, who at times remain in a minimally responsive state, are the ones that ARBI takes in. It is the only communitybased organization in Alberta that offers the slow, long-term help required for the “hard cases” like Hubbard.
ARBI helps about 100 people a year, with demand growing. Most of its clients are stroke victims like Hubbard, although young victims with traumatic brain injury from accidents are also ARBI clients.
Hubbard is currently in a care facility, but has progressed to the point where he may soon be able to live with one of his daughters and, eventually, independently.
“I have a great family,” he says.
Included in that definition, he would agree, are the dedicated volunteers and professionals at ARBI who are giving him back his life.
Victims of brain injury and stroke can benefit greatly from the Tutor system. These devices known as the HandTutor, ArmTutor, LegTutor and 3DTutor have already been used successfully in leading U.S. and foreign hospitals and clinics.
The newly developed HandTutor and its sister devices have become a key system in neuromuscular rehabilitation and physical therapy for post stroke and TBI patients. These innovative devices implement an impairment based program with augmented feedback and encourage motor learning through intensive active exercises. The exercises are challenging and motivating and allow for repetitive training tailored to the patient’s performance. Customized software allows the therapist to adjust the program to the patient’s ability. The system also includes objective quantitative evaluations that provide the therapist information to customize the most suitable rehabilitation program to the patient’s ability. Telerehabilitation allows the system to be used at home. The devices are suitable for children as well as adults.