Introducing Tailwind
Here you can learn about Tailwind™, a unique device that clinical studies have
demonstrated can permanently improve arm movement in stroke patients who
have lost upper extremity function - even years after their stroke event. The device is also helpful in improving arm function following brain injury, tumor and cerebral palsy. Tailwind is
a home-based exercise device developed by researchers at
the University of Maryland Medical School.
Effective for Stroke Survivors
Tailwind consists of two handles that move along independent
resistance-free tracks. The user moves the handles along each track
from different starting marks - and has auditory cues to guide when to
move his or
her arms. It is a "sound-to-brain" neural pathway retraining approach
that is theorised to help users with mild stroke symptoms achieve
life-altering results.
First of a Kind for Stroke
Tailwind has been demonstrated in clinical studies to permanently improve arm movement in stroke patients who have lost upper extremity function. In published
clinical studies, the science behind Tailwind was found to be a potentially useful solution in stroke rehabilitation.
So don't let discouragement from years of rehab that did not deliver the results you wanted prevent you from trying new Tailwind. If you have the motivation
to work with this device, research suggests it will work for you.
Quick Enquiry
Rehabilitation
in your own hands
SecureLive
Muscle ‘synergies’ a key to stroke treatment?
Researchers at MIT and San Camillo Hospital in Venice, Italy, have shown that motor impairments in stroke patients can be understood as impairments in specific combinations of muscle activity, known as synergies. Previous work in animals and humans has shown that groups of muscles tend to be co-activated as a unit in predicable patterns, or synergies, across a wide range of movements.
Synergies are thought to represent the fundamental building blocks from which the brain constructs complex movements. The new findings support this concept and also suggest new approaches to the rehabilitation of stroke patients. Stroke is a leading cause of long-term disability in many countries and makes a massive impact upon the quality of life of victims and carers alike.
Emilio Bizzi, an MIT Professor and a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, used electromyographic (EMG) recording to measure activity in arm and shoulder muscles of eight stroke patients as they performed a variety of reaching movements.
The patients had stroke damage in one cortical hemisphere only, so one arm was impaired while the other was largely unaffected. The researchers used computational methods to identify groups of muscles whose activation was correlated across movements.
In seven out of eight patients, these correlations, or synergies, were largely identical between the affected and unaffected arms, even though the actual movements were very different between the two arms. The results support the view that the synergies are encoded in the brainstem or spinal cord, areas that were unaffected in these patients. “We show that descending neural signals from the motor cortex select, activate and combine a small number of muscle synergies specified by networks in the spinal cord or brainstem,” Bizzi explains, “and different movements emerge as these synergies are recruited to various degrees.”
Next steps: The findings suggest a new approach to the rehabilitation of stroke patients. By identifying synergies whose activations are affected following a stroke, it may be possible to develop focused rehabilitation methods that specifically train the impaired synergies. As a first step toward this goal, the researchers plan to monitor a group of stroke patients as they undergo rehabilitation therapy, to determine whether the post-stroke improvements in motor function can be explained as changes in the activation pattern of specific synergies.
Source: Chung VC, Piron L, Agostini M, Silvoni S, Turolla A, Bizzi E. (2009). Stability of muscle synergies for voluntary actions after cortical stroke in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA). Oct 19 2009.