Rockstar with 'bionic' arm

I happened across this in my idle googling - even rockstars use the SAEBO Flex. Dorian Cox, guitarist of the Long Blondes, who I have to admit, I've never heard of (but then their music isn't my kind of thing) suffered a stroke in June last year. He has apparently subsequently been using the SAEBO Flex, dubbed 'bionic arm' by fans and the media, to regain function in his hand. Perhaps this will give stroke therapy some sort of rockstar status and give some publicity to the devices. He's lucky that he has access to this form of therapy so soon after his stroke, I wish something like this had been offered to me earlier in my rehab.

SEABO Assessement

I had my SAEBO assessment today, and was fortunate enough to have Glyn Blakey, the UK's SAEBO trainer, come to help with the assessment - and his expansive box of tricks. The Flex, which I am most interested in, is rather like one huge Meccano set with metal levers, screw posts and springs connected together. However, it was suggested that I'd get more use out of the Flex if I also slept using the SAEBO Stretch at night. I have worn night splints in the past, but if anyone has ever attempted this, they will know all too well how uncomfortable it is to do. If you haven't, think of it like sleeping with a badminton racket strapped to your hand.

I was a little dubious that the Stretch would be any different, as from photos it looked pretty similar to every other splint I'd tried. However, when I was strapped in I have to say the Stretch was quite comfortable, there is a lot more soft padding around the edges of the splint so I hopefully wont poke an eye out in the night. The Stretch is meant to be less harmful than previous splints because it protects against damage that is regularly caused by the plastic and metal splints. The general thought on splint design is to keep both the hand and wrist in an 'up' position to counteract the natural tendency of stroke/paralyzed hands to become contracted and claw like.

The problem is, that lifting the wrist makes the tightness and contraction of the fingers worse, so strapping the fingers down in this situation just makes it worse and causes long term damage to the hand. I'd actually thought this for years, which is why I gave up on them, but it seemed to be the standard text book notion of what you do with a splint. Thankfully SAEBO have actually worked this one out, so the splint sacrifices perfect wrist position in favour of straight fingers, but over a course of months raises the wrist gradually to let the fingers adjust. As you can see (from the slightly blurry photo) my little finger is kept separate from the other fingers, acknowledging that it tends to get squashed when you strap all four together, and although the wrist isn't in a perfectly flat position, it's better than the one it would usually be in.

After this I tried on the SAEBO Flex, which took a little while to set up (adjusting metal struts, screwing them together and adjusting spring loads), and afterwards I felt a little like Tom Cruise in Minority Report or Edward Scissorhands, but it was quite nice to have my hand in a semi-open position albeit sheathed in metal and plastic. The task they get everyone to perform initially is picking up a squashy grapefruit sized foam ball and depositing it in a box - and then repeat for as long as they want.. The gripping aspect was relatively easy since I can get my hand to naturally clamp shut most of the time, although the springs were trying to fight me. Releasing the ball was more of a task, but after two or three ball drops I was getting the hang of it. Psychologically, if nothing else, it's nice to see that my left hand could still perform a function without my right hand being involved. The devices are quite a commitment, you have to
at the very least do 40 minutes of exercise a day with the Flex for it to be effective, but I think that quite reasonable for the potential pay off. Well, I'm convinced, so watch this space whilst I await the delivery of my own Flex and Stretch!