Click the play button on the video window to the right to see the storyFor the past month, Stan Decker has come to a small room in Banner Baywood Hospital for treatment.
The 72-year-old Mesa man suffered a stroke two years ago.
"I was eating lunch, ready to play golf and I felt my hip go to sleep," he said. "Strokes hit you so fast."
The stroke left him near death, unable to walk, and took his ability to control the right arm.
"We used to call it his rogue arm," said his wife, Diane Decker. "He would swing his arm and clear a table right off because he didn't know where (his arm) was at."
But that was before.
Now through a program set up between ASU researchers with the college's Arts, Media and Enigeering school and Banner Baywood, Decker is one of the first stroke patients to go through a new, cutting-edge therapy that is helping him gain control.
"(His arm) would get into all sorts of trouble," Diane said. "But he's vastly improved."
Decker spent 90 minutes, three days a week, working on his motor skills with the therapy called "Mixed Reality Rehablilitation.
It's one of a kind in that it allows patients to play a much greater role in their rehab.
"One size fits all doesn't work for stroke therapy," said Thanassis Rikakis, an ASU professor who's helped develop the therapy. "(Every stroke patient) has a different problem and everyone learns differently."
Researchers spent four years developing the program.
Patients are connected to sensors placed around the room. They then watch themselves reach for objects on a screen, helping to redevelop physical movement and muscle memory -- skills that strokes often damage.
In the past, most stroke patients spent just months in rehab. After that, patients had limited resources because insurance stopped covering treatment.
But this program is changing that.
"If you look at the improvement space for a stoke patient, it's infinite," Rikakis said. "They can keep improving for years past stroke."
The program is looking for more recovering stroke patients to further its research.
If interested, contact ASU at
Thanassis.Rikakis@asu.edu
