Savannah went down to Fairfax, VA yesterday to spend a few days with her grandparents, so I was able to go to Jason's PT session yesterday afternoon. I hadn't been to the longer PT session since his first day (I did aquatherapy, but that's a different beast entirely), so it was really fun to see how far he has progressed in the past week and a half.
He started out on a machine called the RT 600. He had e-stim pads attached all over his legs, and then the PTs used a harness to lift him up into the machine. It's like an elliptical, motion wise.
His therapists wanted him to practice his balance while on the machine, so we played a couple games of Wii bowling. It was fun....and I lost....badly.
Jason with the Wii controller.
After the RT 600, Jason moved over to the KAFOs. These aren't his braces (he'll pick those up when he gets back to CA next week), but it was good practice for when he does get his. He has e-stim pads on for this exercise as well (the e-stim is a HUGE part of the program here). The stim pads shocked his leg muscles and helped him with walking. The harness you see in the photos is put in place so that he doesn't have to bear all of his weight while walking. He did 160 ft of walking while supported with the harness, and 40 ft totally on his own. It was quite the workout! I think he'll be using the KAFOs exclusively at SCI-FIT for a while, since they have the set-up necessary for helping him with this. He'll need to get a bit steadier on them before we work with them at home.
It was a lot of fun to see him walking like this. Better than the elegs because this was him doing this more or less on his own, and not with the help of a robot on his back :)
And one last sweet picture. Savannah met a new friend on Tuesday night...I think she's really missed having children her own age to play with!
Two more days at KKI...I'll be going to both sessions, so I'm sure there'll be more pictures/videos coming!
Love,
Ashley
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