Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Things here have been going very well. Mark continues to work hard at all his therapies and the hard work is paying off. He would love to see results faster, but I think he understands that he has to persevere for a while yet.

Today, he spent his first half hour on the Lokomat which is a robotic treadmill that mimics the exact walking gait he should have. By doing this mechanically, it etches the pattern of walking in the brain so that he will have a proper gait (hopefully) when he is walking on his own. It also stretches the muscles in the legs and hips where he is overly tight. All in all it is a wonderful piece of equipment. There are only two of these in the country and we are fortunate to have one here. He will be using it three times a week and we will post photos. Here is a link to the company's website for those of you who would like to see what it is like:

http://www.hocoma.ch/web/en/products/features_functions_lokomat.html

Mark also had some additional neuro-psychology tests today. They are trying to track his progress in the cognitive areas. He did very, very well. Last month, he was able to get 50 percent of the questions, tasks right. Today he was able to get 90 percent correct. They had to take him off the Aricept because that was what was making him nauseous as well as losing his appetite. They put him on a drug for attention instead and he feels better and the results are good. Hopefully, they will continue, but the doctors are very happy and so are we.