LegTutor, 3DTutor Assist Balance Therapy for Parkinson’s Patients

Abigail L. Leddy, Beth E. Crowner and Gammon M. Earhart of the Washington University School of Medicine writing in the Journal of the American Physical Therapy Association discuss a study pertaining to balance in Parkinson’s disease patients.
Balance impairment, gait impairments and falls are prevalent in Parkinson disease (PD) patients. The Berg Balance Scale (BBS) can be considered the reference standard for the determination of the risk of falling but it has a noted ceiling effect. Development of ceiling-free measures that can assess balance and are good at discriminating “fallers” from “nonfallers” is needed, was their conclusion.
The LEGTUTOR™ is used for Parkinson’s disease patients and also orthopedic and trauma rehabilitation as it offers the possibility to do repetitive isolated and combined movement practice. Patients with neurological lower limb movement impairments including stroke, CP and spinal and brain injury patients also benefit from the use of the LEGTUTOR. The LEGTUTOR along with its sister products, the ARMTUTOR, LEGTUTOR and 3DTUTOR, allow for controlled exercise of single and multi joints within the normal movement pattern This prevents the development of undesired and compensatory joint movement and ensures better performance of functional tasks.
For balance therapy a LEGTUTOR or 3DTUTOR is placed on the less impaired leg and/or on the more impaired leg.
Then the patient stands on one leg (either impaired or healthy) and then plays an aiming game like “darts” which is one of the games on the dedicated TUTOR software. This way it strengthens both the legs and works on balance + cognition.
The LEGTUTOR™ and the ARMTUTOR, HANDTUTOR and 3DTUTOR – the TUTOR system– is used by many leading rehabilitation centers worldwide and has full FDA and CE certification. See WWW.HANDTUTOR.COM.