The HandTutor™ is an active exercise based hand rehabilitation program that uses the accepted methods of impairment orientated training (IOT) with augmented feedback. The HandTutor™ evaluates and treats extension/ flexion of the finger(s) and wrist.
The system is based on a safe comfortable glove with position and speed sensors together with the dedicated rehabilitation software package. There are five glove sizes for both left and right sizes. The program uses the known concept of biofeedback to give occupational and physical therapists access to an affordable user friendly hand rehabilitation package. The HandTutor™ can also be used in combination with the ElbowTutor™ for arm rehabilitation. The HandTutor™ is CE medical and FDA certified.
Indications for hand rehabilitation with the HandTutor™ include:
- Post Ischemic or Hemorrhagic stroke
- Hand dexterity improvement following head injuries
- Hand tremor, quivering and movement Bradykinesia caused by Neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease and Essential Tremors
- Hand Strengthening for patients suffering from Multiple Sclerosis
- Adult and Child Cerebral Palsy including spastic, ataxic and athetoid mixed cerebral palsy
- Development Co-ordination Disorders (DCD) including Dyspraxia, characterized by clumsy and physically awkward child hand movements
- Hand surgery rehabilitation following Tendon transfer or Open Reduction Internal Fixation (ORIF)
- Elbow, Radius, Ulnar fractures and soft tissue and other forearm injuries
- Brachial Plexus nerve injury
- Radial and Ulnar nerve injuries
- Hand Impairments characterized by limited active range of finger and wrist motion due to muscle weakness and muscle flaccidity
- Hand movement disorders including benign essential tremor
- Hand pain management and pain rehabilitation due to Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
HandTutor™
With the HandTutor™ Meditouch™ has developed a system that builds on the proven rehabilitation concept that uses active repetitive exercises together with biofeedback. This allows the occupational or physical therapist to give treatment based on challenging exercises tailored to the patient's hand impairment such as range of motion, accuracy and speed of movement. Hand rehabilitation treatments using the HandTutor can be combined with traditional hand therapy to optimize the rehabilitation of motor, sensory and cognitive performance and allow the patient to better perform everyday functional tasks and improve their quality of life.
The program allows the clinician to firstly evaluate the patient's hand impairment. This information is saved and documented so that a continuous report of patient progress is always available. This allows reports to be given to other rehabilitation specialists to ensure that the patient's treatment schedule is optimized ensuring better treatment outcome.
The clinician can then choose and customize the game and its level of difficulty to patient's specific impairment. For example the game "Save the Earth" game can be chosen to work on speed of finger movement. The level of game difficulty can be adjusted either by the clinician or automatically controlled by the computer as the patients exercise performance leads to an improvement in their range of motion.
The clinician can then choose and customize the game and its level of difficulty to the patient's specific impairment. For example the game "Save the Earth" game can be chosen to work on speed of finger movement. The level of game difficulty can be adjusted either by the clinician or automatically controlled by the computer as the patients exercise performance leads to an improvement in their range of motion.
The patient receives motion, visual and auditory biofeedback from the system which teaches them to understand, plan and direct their hand finger and wrist movements to perform the required exercise. The package has been designed to ensure that the patient remains challenged and motivated. All the exercises can be performed at different difficulty levels that can be customized to the patient's degree of hand impairment and hand movement ability. This means that the patient is always able to interact with the games. In addition the level of exercise difficulty can be adjusted either by the clinician or automatically by the software. The patient's motivation to improve on their hand exercise performance is further increased as an overall performance score is included in the sophisticated program. Overall the rehabilitation program ensures that the patient achieves controlled muscle reinforcement as the clinician can choose and tailor the appropriate exercise to the patient.
The HandTutor™ system incorporates server based patient record software that allows quantitative reports of the patient's rehabilitation to be saved and used later in treatment reports. This allows the clinician to evaluate and justify the rehabilitation process and further tailor the rehabilitation process to the patient's hand impairment. In addition the occupation and physical therapist can use the HandTutor™ new technology to work on several motor impairments simultaneously.
The system is sold into specialized hospital and primary care hand clinics where it allows the clinician to offer simultaneous multiple patient treatments for a broad range of hand rehabilitation indications. The system is also used by general occupational and physiotherapy clinics that offer their patients a high tech treatment option for hand rehabilitation. A home use version is also available which allows the patient to further achieve accelerated rehabilitation by continuing their treatment sessions at home. Rehabilitation is therefore not limited to the hospital and primary care clinic and sessions can take place whenever the patient is motivated and available to train ensuring greater patient treatment acceptance and compliance and further improving their exercise performance.
This innovative high tech new technology allows for faster and better rehabilitation results enhancing patient quality of life.
