Tutor System Children Friendly

ASHLEY L. CONTI writing for the YorktownPress.com on NOv. 22, 2011 tells about Elijah Owens and his ordeal.
When you first meet Elijah Owens, 6, you can’t help but smile. Elijah is a happy, funny first-grade student at Daleville Elementary School.
But on Oct. 17, his teacher noticed he wasn’t acting himself after recess, that he was feeling pretty down. She went over to talk to him but Owens wouldn’t answer her questions.
It turned out he had just suffered a stroke.
His mother, Jeri Sue Ownes, a single mother who has been a teacher and coach at Daleville Junior-Senior High School for more than 13 years, was called, and Elijah was rushed to IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital.
“I knew right when I first saw him he had a stroke,” Jeri said. “His mouth was drooping and he was drooling.”
A blood vessel on the left side of Elijah’s brain is not as smooth as it should be and didn’t allow blood to flow to that part of the brain, causing the stroke.
Doctors sill aren’t sure what caused this vessel to be this way, and are still running tests to determine the cause.
“I never thought this would happen to us,” said Elijah’s mother.
Most people don’t; according to the National Stroke Association website, “incidence (of a stroke) is about 2-8 strokes per 100,000 children each year, a rate comparable to brain tumors in children.”
To help prevent another stroke, Elijah takes a baby aspirin a day to help keep his blood thinner.
The stroke left Elijah with weakness on the right side of his body, along with a slight speech impediment.
To help correct the effects of the stroke, Elijah now goes to Pediatric Rehabilitation Services in Muncie every Wednesday for speech and occupational therapy. For 45 minutes each, he works on endurance and strength on his right side, and works on his “s” and “g” sounds.
“It’s a slow process. It’s just a day to day thing,” Jeri Owens said. “Elijah is a perfectionist and it’s been hard for him. He gets frustrated with therapy, and he’ll say ‘I hate this hand!’ when he can’t get something right.”
But Elijah’s occupational and speech therapists have noticed improvements since he first started.
The newly developed Tutor system has been created with both children and adults in mind. It uses a series of games in its customized software that allows the therapist to design a treatment session for that specific patient. Games such as Snow ball, Car race, Bubbles and others allow the therapist to evaluate and objectively quantify the patient’s motor and cognitive impairments.
19a) The Tutor system, consisting of the HandTutor, ArmTutor, LegTutor and 3DTutor, has been developed to allow for functional rehabilitation of the whole body including the upper and lower extremity following stroke, brain/spinal cord injury,Parkinson’s disease, CP,MS, Brachial Plexus injury and more. The system consists of ergonomic wearable devices and dedicated rehabilitation software that provide patient instructions and feedback to encourage intensive massed controlled exercise practice. The Tutor system allows for controlled exercise of multijoints within the normal movement pattern which prevents the development of undesired and compensatory joint movement and ensures better performance of functional tasks. Additional features of the Tutor system include quantitative evaluation, objective follow up and tele-rehabilitation.
The new medical devices are available for children as well as adults and through the use of telerehabilitation and are FDA and CE certified. See www.HandTutor.com for more information.