Gorbel Medical, Fishers, NY, recently announced that The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s Outpatient Rehabilitation Facility at Martha Morehouse Medical Plaza, Columbus, Ohio, has installed its SafeGait physical therapy device.
In a company news release, Brian Reh, president and CEO, Gorbel Inc, articulates the company’s excitement in partnering with the medical institution, which he says “is also one of nine centers worldwide of the distinguished NeuroRecovery Network.”
SafeGait is a dynamic body-weight support system built to protect patients from falling through dynamic fall protection while they engage in activities such as gait, stair climbing, and standing up from a chair during rehab. The device is also engineered to use Android technology to capture task-level patient performance data in real time as a means to document progress.
Gorbel Medical adds in the release that OSU and three New York rehabilitation facilities will conduct research using a standardized approach designed to investigate the impact of using SafeGait in therapy with patients who have neurological and neurodegenerative diagnoses. The New York rehabilitation facilities include the University of Rochester Medical Center, Monroe Community Hospital, and Nazareth College.
The release reports that the institutions will begin by assessing individuals with stroke, spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. Additionally, the researchers will explore the possibility of reducing the financial burden on the healthcare system by focusing on how SafeGait can assist in decreasing the risk of injuries to both patients and healthcare professionals.
D. Michele Basso, EdD, PT, professor and associate director of the OSU School of health and Rehabilitation Sciences, adds in the release that she feels “patients are going to benefit by being able to move without fear of falling. Therapists are going to be able to deliver truly innovative treatments, and researchers will be able to measure treatment intensity and outcomes.”
Basso also serves as the director of the NeuroRecovery Network at OSU, the release states.
[Source: Gorbel Medical]
