I would like to know how they will ENSURE hand therapy works. Send your doctor off on a quest to find out how they are doing that. If its good enough for Australia it should be good enough for the world. Ensure sounds like 100% recovery, hold them to that standard.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/aust-first-hand-therapy-aims-to-close-gap/story-fni0xqi4-1226801570570
IN an Australian first, Royal
Melbourne Hospital has launched a rehab clinic providing dedicated
support to ensure stroke victims regain use of their hands and arms.
The standard three-week rehabilitation course for public stroke
patients is focused on getting them to walk out the door in the limited
timeframe. That typically comes at the expense of hand therapy, which
means menial tasks such as making a cup of tea, hugging a loved one or
even doing up the buttons on a shirt often becomes an Everest-shaped
hurdle.
But the rehab clinic, the Hand Hub, is now trying to bridge that divide.
The
750 patients expected to complete their rehab at the Hand Hub this year
will use a series of specifically designed video games to restore the
dexterity and strength in their hands.
Professor Fary Khan, the
hospital's director of rehabilitation services, says the program is the
first in Australia dedicated to hand and arm therapy.
"There's a limited timeframe we have to work with limited resources
so the focus of course is to get patients to be able to turn in bed, to
sit up, to walk.
"As a result we see people in the community years
after a stroke who have been discharged with inadequate support and
treatment and still have no movement in their arm," she said.
The
Hand Hub was set up with a $220,000 state government grant, but more
funding is needed if the hospital is to expand its program and have a
widespread impact.
Prof Khan envisions a set-up that would allow
one therapist to monitor up to 10 patients as they work through the
program on their computer at home.
Sixty per cent of public patients are discharged after a stroke or brain injury with impaired hand function, Prof Khan said.
"They're just sitting there, totally dependent on their loved ones," she said.
"You
can't measure those hours a carer puts in and it's not just the
personal cost of that but the economic burden loss of employment that
flows on from that.
"This is an attempt to address that gap in services."
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