Look at Me Go!!

A few weeks ago Luke tried something new at therapy and yesterday we did it again. In order to get Luke to rely on his own core muscles more, his PT put Luke in a harness attached to a mobile unit. It is the same unit that we had been using, without the harness, when walking on their treadmill at therapy. It has handle bars that go up and down. When I first saw him in it, it reminded me of what Luke might look like if he were rigged up in a parachute or something. (see video below to visualize)


When Luke uses his walker he is able to put some of his weight on his arms and able to then use his arms to help him keep balance and walk. With this mobile unit he is not putting his weight on anything but himself. He wears a harness with four straps attached. Luke’s PT has him hold on to the two straps in front to have a place for his hands.

He seems to really like this, in fact this second time doing it yesterday he walked faster with it. But, you could tell by the second lap around the building that he was wearing down. He started leaning into the harness, like he was using it to help keep him upright.

The first time we did this Luke was so tired that when the PT tried to get him to sit and then stand up…he would stand for 1 or 2 seconds and then squat back to a sitting position. He usually loved to stand up and throw a ball or something, but he was so tired he didn’t even want to stand!! This time he walked most of the time either with the mobile unit or a walker, like his new one we ordered. Which by the way, this new walker we are working with at therapy has a “disability” of its own…we haven’t figured it out yet, but the left rear wheel catches and lifts off the ground and the friction causes Luke to keep going to the left. So it actually takes a lot of muscle on Luke’s part to steer the thing on the right path. So after walking two laps with the mobile unit, two laps with the “disabled” walker and doing some cruising exercise, he was pretty tired last night!! He did so well yesterday though, he kept fighting through it all. Go Luke GO!!