Juvenile CIMT Intervention is Complemented by the ArmTutor in Rehabilitation

Children with unilateral cerebral palsy (CP) often demonstrate limited reach, grasp, and manipulation in the involved upper extremity. These limitations affect their functional activities, including social play, object play, educational activities and self-care. Most children with unilateral CP learn to perform tasks primarily using their noninvolved arm with minimal to almost no use of the involved arm.
Constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) is a short-term, intensive intervention that involves constraint of the noninvolved arm and intensive movement practice of the involved arm. Developed in the 1980s it has been successfully used with adults and children. Most protocols for pediatrics consider the child’s age and interests, are specifically adapted to the child’s leve and type of impairment, and usually include an educational component for caregivers to maintain practice of newly gained skills.
After numerous trials depending on age, schedules and other factors the results of a comprehensive study found that pediatric CIMT is a useful intervention producing clinically significant improvements in upper-extremity function of young children with unilateral CP.
When the child is at least 4 years old the ARMTUTOR is an important device used in C.I.M.T. rehabilitation therapy for children with CP caused upper extremity limitations.
The newly developed ARMTUTOR can play an integral part in the C.I.M.T. process. The ARMTUTOR provides the physiotherapist and occupational therapist the ability to customize manual therapy for the arm, shoulder, elbow and wrist. Together with its sister devices (HANDTUTOR,LEGTUTOR, 3DTUTOR) it has been developed to allow for functional rehabilitation of the upper extremity. The ARMTUITOR system consists of an ergonomic wearable arm brace and dedicated rehabilitation software. The ARMTUTOR system allows for the occupational and physical therapists to implement biomechanical evaluations which include speed, passive/active range of motion and motion analysis of the upper extremity. This, to best customize the shoulder and elbow exercises provided by the ARMTUTOR. In addition, quantitative biomechanical data allows for objective evaluation and rehabilitation treatment follow up by the occupational and physical therapist. The ARMTUTOR rehabilitation concept is based on performing controlled and motivating exercise rehabilitation practice at a patient customized level with real time accurate feedback on the patient’s performance. The exercises are designed in the form of challenging games that are suitable for a wide variety of orthopedic injury and disease.The games, which children love, challenge the patient to perform the exercise task to their best ability.
The ARMTUTOR provides detailed exercise performance instructions and precise feedback on the patients performance. This encourages motivation. Controlled exercise of multijoints within the normal movement pattern prevents the development of undesired and compensatory joint movement and ensures better performance of functional tasks.
The ARMTUTOR system is being used by many leading rehabilitation centers worldwide and has full FDA and CE certification. See WWW.HANDTUTOR.COM