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Happy
holiday season.
From your
friends at IM
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Save on
Certification Courses in 2008 |
Save
$10 by entering the promo code"Holiday2008" Expires
12/31/08
*Register 3 weeks before course and save an additional
$20 (Discount Automatically Taken Off) |
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Date |
Location |
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12/13 |
Baltimore, MD |
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12/13 |
Mobile,
AL |
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12/13 |
Dallas,
TX |
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12/13 |
Long
Island, NY |
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12/14 |
Brooklyn,
NY |
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1/10 |
Columbus,
OH |
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1/10 |
Tallahassee, FL |
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1/10 |
St.
Louis, MO |
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1/10 |
Houston,
TX |
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1/17 |
Grand
Rapids, MI |
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1/24 |
Hartford,
CT |
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1/24 |
Louisville, KY |
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1/24 |
Minneapolis, MN |
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1/24 |
Los
Angeles, CA |
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1/31 |
Indianapolis, IN |
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1/31 |
Columbia,
SC |
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1/31 |
Denver,
CO |
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1/31 |
Seattle,
WA |
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2/7 |
Atlanta,
GA |
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2/7 |
Wichita,
KS |
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2/7 |
Albuquerque, MN |
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2/14 |
Newark,
NJ |
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2/14 |
San
Francisco, CA |
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2/21 |
Boston,
MA |
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2/21 |
Nashville, TN |
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2/21 |
Little
Rock, AR |
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2/21 |
Phoenix,
AZ |
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2/28 |
Providence, RI |
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2/28 |
Miami, FL |
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2/28 |
Chicago,
IL |
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2/28 |
Dallas,
TX |
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3/7 |
Long
Island, NY |
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3/7 |
Norfolk,
VA |
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3/7 |
Lincoln,
NE |
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3/7 |
Spokane,
WA |
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3/14 |
Scranton,
PA |
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3/14 |
Raleigh,
NC |
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3/14 |
Salt Lake
City, UT |
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3/21 |
Portland,
ME |
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3/21 |
Spartanburg, SC |
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3/21 |
Birmingham, AL |
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3/21 |
San
Diego, CA |
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3/28 |
Kalamazoo, MI |
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3/28 |
Roanoke,
VA |
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3/28 |
Green
Bay, WI |
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3/28 |
El Paso,
TX |
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4/4 |
Syracuse,
NY |
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4/4 |
Orlando,
FL |
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4/4 |
Cedar
Rapids, IA |
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4/4 |
Boise, ID |
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4/18 |
New York,
NY |
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4/18 |
Baltimore, MD |
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4/18 |
Kansas
City, MO |
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4/18 |
Sioux
Falls, SD |
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4/18 |
Tucson,
AZ |
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4/25 |
Philadelphia, PA |
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4/25 |
Savannah,
GA |
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4/25 |
Baton
Rouge, LA |
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4/25 |
Austin,
TX |
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The cost 3 weeks
before the course date is
$205
for an individual
and $180 for a group of 3 or more.
Register Now!
Within 3 weeks of the course the regular price
is $225
for an individual
and $200 for a group of 3 or more.
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in your area?
Click here to e-mail a Private Course
request (Please include 3 course dates you are
interested in.
*Note:
Courses must be scheduled at least 45 days in
advance) or call 877-994-6776 opt 4 (US Only) or
954-385-4660 opt 4
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look forward to helping you making IM succeed in your practice. |
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IM Holiday
Incentives |
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IM Station- 50 Free Hours ($500
Value)
Cost- $3300
Includes: 1 IM Station, Preloaded w/100 IM Hours,
Hand Trigger, Foot Trigger, Junction Box, USB Cable,
Headphones (2), Large Hand Glove, Small Hand Glove,
Software, and Marketing Package |
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Best Practices Package- $100 off
Cost: $800
Includes:
Hand Trigger, Foot Trigger, Junction Box, Wireless Hand
Trigger, Wireless Foot Trigger, Wireless Junction Box,
Large Glove, and Small Glove. |
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Buy one get one half off
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not have your Facility ID and Password
|
 |
 In
Tempo
Patients Reach the Right Rhythm With Interactive
Metronome
By John Leighty
Monday November
24, 2008
|
 Dillen Hartley, OTR/L, IMC, knew little about interactive metronome when he became co-owner of Advanced Therapy Solutions in Spartanburg, S.C., six years ago, but the rhythmical treatment struck the right chord.
“I was looking for new ways to work with patients and performance-based feedback intrigued me, so I jumped in and started using it during therapy,” he says. “Since then, my knowledge of how IM works and the understanding about what goes on in the brain have expanded exponentially.”
From his introduction to IM in 2002, Hartley’s enthusiasm has grown. He’s now an instructor for IM certification and has incorporated the technology in the treatment of more than 90 patients in four affiliated private practice clinics: pediatrics, women’s health, lower back pain, and adult ortho-neurology.
Repetition Rewires Brain
There have been approximately 7,500 OTs, PTs, and speech therapists certified in using IM in the U.S. and abroad since the brain-based therapy came onto the scene in the early 1990s, says Al Guerra, vice president of Interactive Metronome Inc. in Vero Beach, Fla.
Use of the cutting-edge neurological treatment and assessment tool, which coincides with new discoveries about 0brainwave activities, requires repetitive timing exercises that eventually “rewire” circuitry in key areas of the brain, such as the basal ganglia, which controls movements, Guerra says.
All that’s required for IM exercises is a laptop computer to run an audio and visual program and headphones for patients so they can clap to the beat, or in more targeted exercises, hit, tap, bump, or squeeze a “trigger” when cued.
The computer also can display a row of five different colored bulbs with the goal being to make the green bulb in the middle glow. Lights going on to the left of green means a patient’s timing is too slow; to the right of green means the timing is too fast. Because patients get immediate feedback, they become motivated to repeat the exercise until they get into synch.
“Patients need to be engaged,” Guerra notes.
The different colored lights and progressive guide sounds, including a ding, beep, twang, and buzz, let patients know how close they are to achieving a goal. Guerra says the process can be frustrating or fun, depending on the approach used by the therapist. Patients want to see the red light switch to green or hear the twang become a buzz — signals that they’re making progress, he comments.
“It’s seems really simple, but there’s a lot going on in the brain to synchronize auditory and visual data with functional activity,” he says. “You have to believe in neural plasticity — the ability of the brain to rewire itself — and if you don’t grasp that concept, you shouldn’t be doing the therapy.”
Squishy Bugs Therapy
When Mary Jones, OTR/L, left a rehab setting three years ago to start Sensational Kids LLC in Bradenton, Fla., she brought the metronome beat with her, along with a lot of creative ideas for its use with youngsters.
“The results have been phenomenal. IM improves any function that takes timing and rhythm, so it can help with a lot of everyday activities,” she says.
To get children engaged, she places triggers for kids to push for instant feedback on the exercise throughout the therapy room. She puts them on beanbags, up and down walls, or inside tunnels that kids must crawl through to tap. She also tapes switches to kids’ hands and lets them swat “squishy bugs” scattered on the floor each time they hear a beep.
If she wants to have children stretch up or reach down, she’ll put a trigger at the right height on a wall or piece of furniture, or she’ll attach one beneath a coffee table that kids have to lie down and slide under to hit. She might even put a trigger around the children’s ankles and tell them to jiggle to the beat.
“With kids, you need to modify what you’re doing to keep their interest,” Jones says. “You have to build up repetitions based on their learning curve, and you have to have fun.”
Reaching Functional Goals
Linda Rubin, OTR/L, a senior occupational therapist in outpatient care for HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital in Sarasota, Fla., says she’s adopted IM for nearly all her patients, with excellent results.
“I have been trained in several rehabilitation techniques, none of which have been as effective in the facilitation of functional therapy goals as IM,” Rubin says.
She sets up rhythmic exercises to help children with autism, ADHD, muscular dystrophy, auditory and visual processing delays, learning disorders, developmental delays, or coordination problems, including handwriting or shoe tying. In adults, she uses it to gauge cognitive functions of patients with Parkinson’s, head injuries, stroke, multiple sclerosis, post-concussive syndrome, spinal cord injuries, and central processing delays.
“Interactive metronome can be adapted to work on any specific goal a patient may have,” she says.
Hartley says therapists can use IM to simulate an environment where a patient relearns such daily chores as how to dress, brush his or her teeth, or count money. “Through activity analysis, the OT practitioner determines the core challenges affecting someone’s ability to perform a particular activity such as brushing their teeth. The IM technology allows therapists to take that core component, [such as] shoulder abduction, and practice it, getting feedback based on the patient’s performance and making adjustments accordingly,” he says.
This feedback loop allows the patient to achieve neuromuscular learning that facilitates his or her ability to perform the core component of an activity with greater accuracy and speed, and less cognitive resources, Hartley says. For patients who have had a mild stroke and are unable to drive, Hartley uses IM to help them concentrate and improve cognitive skills — visual perception, timing, and safety awareness — that in most cases puts them back behind the wheel.
“With IM repetitions, manipulating how a patient moves an arm or leg so they can do it without thinking is the key to true functional outcome,” he says. “The keyword is self-efficacy, the confidence to do something once they walk out the clinic door.”
Hartley holds weekend IM certification training around the country and says interest by OTs is soaring because of the potential to enhance functional activities of daily living.
“IM is a very viable technology, and the research is compelling. It’s really a matter of time before it becomes an industry standard,” he says.
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