Has anyone used any of the products or advice promoted on the Flint Rehab site? Or perhaps you know someone who has. If my hand and arm can be helped, I would be very appreciative. Thanks, Margaret
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I have been thinking about Flint rehab too. Has anyone used their Physio’s? We live miles away from the nearest instructor which bumps the cost up. Quite happy to pay nearly anything if I knew it would help.
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I’ve looked at their stuff but never taken the plunge. They seem to focus on many repetitions & I felt that i could do other stuff
without the cost. Then i wasn’t as badly affected on my arm as others.
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I can’t speak from 1st hand experience of products.
There Facebook group has generally good feedback including for UK customers.
The Mi seems most talked about but it’s the music glove that seems most interesting (for me at least) I’ve heard a few bad experiences but most seem to say good things
They were selling with a decent discount on black Friday last year. With SW & tablet etc it gets pricey but if it works… and it’s that 1st feedback i’d like & I’ve never had directly
The rehab articles they have on the web are, it seems good but a good blogger isn’t guarantee of good hw & SW…
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I am interested too - their advice on exercises seems good, but the Music Glove is expensive. Mostly the people in the adverts report improvement after only using it for a week or so, I would like to know what results from long term use. That would give more idea of whether it is worth it. My hand and arm are pretty useless, but i would hate to spend that much on something that didn’t do very much.
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Hi @Jfitz
I share some of your uncertainties and doubts etc I spent a fortune on CIMT constraint induced movement therapy. Which if I had my time and money over again I might have done a year later and with a different therapist.
Likewise I had a copy of the grasp manual sent to me by my PT when I was 6 weeks post stroke and I think that set my recovery back because of its impact on motivation relevance and lots of other characteristics.
So I say these opening remarks because I think that there are multiple factors in “is it worth it?” One of which is the price of the hardware and software, but others which are more significant are “where are you in your recovery journey” and “where is your head at in application mode / attitude?”
I’m at the stage where I’ve done lots of work over the last 3 years with results that mean I can now just about grasp the waistband of my trousers when I pick them up off the floor to put them on, I can just about use a spoon for my cereal. I have been able to successfully eaten a bowl of cereal right-handed for about the last year. Well I say successfully I do get a lot the milk running down my chin which I hate and is made worse by the fact I have a beard :-{)}~
I hadn’t really considered that any exercise has a short-term efficacy that doesn’t translate to a long-term efficacy. I was more of the “will this tool encourage me to do more and give me a more structured program than I already self invent” mindset.
So we both have interest and these words are expressing it but not taking us any closer to a decision or more info… I think that’s a bit that needs to be fixed for me and I’ve crystallised my thoughts enough now to consider how will I fix it…
Ciao
Simon
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Hmm, I think i’ll give it a miss for now… you are much further along with your affected hand than I am atm, I can grip my pants to stop them falling down when I’m putting them on, but I can’t hold a spoon in that hand at all. My unaffected right hand is not all that good either with fine movement, so I sometimes end up with dribbles too, though at least I don’t have a beard!
I have found that sometimes trying something new results in a small gain at first, but then nothing more, which was why I was suspicious of these testimonials. Also, I have been doing my leg strengthening exercises religiously for the past 2+ years, with very little improvement in my walking. I can do about 200m with a quad stick, very very slowly! I now no longer hope for quick results, just do the exercise to keep me moving until my brain figures out how to rewire some of the circuits!
Jean
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@Jfitz
If you’re not at the stage to benefit from it then I think it’s likely to be a frustration rather than a benefit… This observation has been a factor with all my PT. Pretty much they have not had any sensitivity to the context (I at the time current capability) into which they insert their interventions . Any advertising for something like a music glove is going to be this is wonderful wherever you are where is reality is maybe this is wonderful if you’re in the right place.
And I think along with @Chlodog (hello again BTW might be my imagination or lack of awareness I think you’ve been quiet recently?) – on the subject of little progress – Which for example I’ve seen with my second and third finger of my right hand – I’ve regarded lack of progress as: 1) “I haven’t yet found the exercises that will wake it up” and 2) those exercise regimes might be on the far side of some undeveloped prerequisites .
So for example I know that how my fingers move is related to where my arm is positioned and I can’t get my arm into all the positions that I want to use in daily life.
if I artificially put my right hand near my left shoulder my fingers work better. So I do some exercise there and then move my right hand closer to the right side of my body and try and do the same exercises - I’m improving
I suppose in short what I’m saying is when an exercise has paid off with its improvements I move on to either exercising a new area or exercising the same area with different exercises. I might come back to the old exercise in 3 or 6 months and normally I find it pays off again with extensions to one or more of range, dexterity, speed stability strength or some other factor but that it doesn’t pay off with all its potential at any one time
Simon
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Thanks Simon, this is actually very helpful and encouraging because it is the sort of thing I was thinking, but wondering if I was just deluding myself a bit. It is difficult, with any progress being so glacially slow, to know whether I’m trying too hard or not hard enough.
My physio recently thought I should back off a bit, and try “less is more”, but I’ve found that after a bit of a relief, actually less is definitely less! I find that with limited energy I really need to use it on the exercises that will give the most results. So I like the idea of trying new ones for a while until diminishing returns sets in, and going back to them later - rather than feeling guilty about abandoning them prematurely!
Jean
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