Our First Zoom AMA Recap: What Are Therapist's Thoughts on The XR Therapy System?
As a company, we want to ensure that our partners across the United States are having a positive experience treating patients with our XR Therapy System. Most importantly, we want to make sure that our modality is useful, easy to use, and proves to be a beneficial tool in their day to day effort of helping patients achieve their highest level of function.
Recently, we kicked off a new event series focused on letting our clinicians who are using the system daily to literally ask us anything! These calls allow clinicians to also meet each other, discuss ideas, and even be used to create treatment plans collectively using the XR Therapy System. FOr those who were not able to make it, or if you do not currently use the XR Therapy System, do not fret! Keep reading to hear an exciting recap of what Christi, a PTA in Central New York, and Megha, a DPT at UPenn Medicine Princeton Medical Center had to share.
How has your time with The XR Therapy System been?
Christi, PTA: The speech therapists have really enjoyed Retail Therapy (the grocery shopping experience) and how pictures of the items were used as well as the reaching assistance given. The therapists have also enjoyed Play Ball (baseball catching game) and the patients have said that they can feel the ball hit their glove, which is pretty cool! I think [Play Ball] is a really good hand eye coordination exercise and is important.
We have also really liked what we have been seeing from pain management standpoint when using the device. The benefits have been incredible in particularly with my MS patients and total knee patients. I have had a couple total knee [patients] who rest in minus 20 degrees of extension and it is hard to walk when your leg lengths are not equal, its “hobbly”. But, when I would put the VR on them, I effortlessly would get down to minus 5 and then, with a little extra push, could hit zero; this was consistent every single time. They could hold that position for 3 to 5 seconds by the time we were done. When we transitioned into standing position it did not carry over quite as much obviously because there was weakness, but we got better terminal [knee] extension that I would have expected and that was incredibly surprising. I knew it would help, but I didn’t think it would help THAT much! We have been able to strengthen these people that are very limited in mobility that can only tolerate maybe a semi reclined or seated position, and I have had some that i did not think I would ever get standing now get strong enough to do so in those positions because they were comfortable enough that we could actually do some standing.
I cannot emphasize enough how absolutely incredibly the results we have been seeing are. It is hard to translate that, especially because i have a short term population that are very, very deconditioned, but when you know how big that changes is that difference between being able to actually sit up in your bed and be more independent. And the other thing too that has made a difference has been Relaxation Station for people (relaxation exercise). I have had people cry because they did not think they would ever be able to see what Paris looked like or they really wanted to see Australia. That type of thing has been really, really huge.
How has patient and therapists satisfaction been regarding The XR Therapy System?
Christi, PTA: Our scores shot up. Before the use of VR we had low satisfaction generally. Therapy wise, [the scores] were not necessarily bad but you could tell patients were getting bored just like therapists were getting bored; everything seemed flat. I have seen now that the surveys have shot right up and from a motivation stand point improving has been the selling point.
With this patient population, I’m trying to get someone that doesn’t really have a whole lot of time left wanting to actually want to do something. [With VR use] has been huge and we start to see a whole lifestyle change with these [patients] and that’s everything I want to see as a therapist.
Megha, DPT: I totally agree with her. More than patients, I feel like all the therapists have been so happy. It is the new toy in town and everybody wants to work with it. Especially in inpatient rehab, patients are getting PT for 2 hours a day and it is so hard to come up with creative [exercises]. I was a little skeptical in the beginning how they will like this system, but it is actually completely opposite than what I thought. Most of the older patients are loving it. I used it with a 94 year old patient and she was like, I want to use this every session!
Truly incredible changes are occurring through the use of the XR Therapy system and not just with patients, but with therapists too. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as we enjoyed hosting the event. If you missed out on this one, then be sure to stay tuned to your email as we have one set to happen in November. Or, maybe your interested in implementing our XR Therapy System in your system, click here to learn more!