Motion is Life!

One of the most beneficial therapies for Randy, in my opinion, is the stationary bike. There is a law about brain activity…the more sensory information we can send UP to the brain (By way of touch, pressure, temperature, and mostly by movement of the joints) the more motor control the brain sends DOWN. It’s how God wired us.

For the time being, Randy can’t move his body intentionally; but he sure would like to… more than anything. If we can get his joints moving as often as possible, then he has a much better chance of controlling movement in his arms, legs and head at some point.

Because of his constant spasticity, it’s like full body resistance training for anyone who is attempting to move any of Randy’s joint for him. He may have lost 50 pounds, but he is still super strong. Randy even gets those 20 something-year-old‘s in the PT clinic sweating. The way to get Randy’s joints moving for any length of time is to use a machine… and a special stationary bike is a great tool!

This one is especially equipped to fasten an immobile patient’s feet and hands onto the device. The machine can detect how much activity Randy is initiating on his own, and can provide a baseline level of activity by engaging a motor that move his feet for him. It takes his tightened arms and legs through a nice range of motion, with controlled movements that more rhythmic that we can manage by hand.

This piece of equipment also detects muscle spasm, and will stop movement, so as not to injure the patient. Because Randy spends his days in constant spasm, I sit right next to him and override the machine periodically, by assisting his movement, to quell any alarms that pop up when the machine detects his muscles misbehaving.

Randy has worked up to about 15 minutes of leg cycling and 15 minutes of arm cycling. The arm set up looks a little more involved, because until Randy can grip the handles intentionally for long periods of time, we have to wrap his hands to the handles using ace bandages.

It’s a fantastic range of motion exercise, and one that is refreshing to Randy, I can tell. He is definitely is working hard when he’s hooked up to the machine, and I’m not certain he enjoys it at the time; but when it’s over he takes a big sigh and relaxes a bit. When I ask him if he likes moving his body he always says, “yes”.

All of you who know Randy well, know that he loves to move his body. He always been so physically active and extremely competitive; pushing his body to do whatever he dreams up. You can imagine it’s extremely frustrating for him to be starting with such remedial movements, but we’ve got to start somewhere!

I keep telling him that this is practice for bike riding with the boys, tilling the garden, casting his line in the water, and throwing a baseball…so, come on, Randy, move it!

We’re gonna need one of these special bikes when we get home. If you know of anyone with something like this that isn’t in use, we’re very interested! **Visit the sponsorship page to find a simple way to assist our family in our continuing journey to get Randy back home.**