Chapter 17: Making a Substitution

THE TAKEAWAY

1.       Read Al Pacino’s Any Given Sunday quotations when you need to remember the skills important in running a rehabilitation program: leadership, teamwork with your stroke survivor, hard work, motivation for small gains, knowledge that you tried, belief that recovery will come, bonding between yourself and your stroke survivor.

2.       Wobblers recovered their balance control using a new rehabilitation technique called sensory substitution.

3.       The ability of our central nervous system to adapt to alternative information when deprived of certain sensory feedback is the foundation of neurorehabilitation through sensory substitution.

4.       Our research lab is proving that sensory substitution works for stroke recovery.

5.       Examples of sensory substitution/biofeedback exercises include weight-bearing using a digital scale, motion using a smartphone app, and sensory reeducation exercises.