Hadley & the Aergo PS
Recently we’ve began our second phase of Aergo PS case studies, and one of our PS Pioneers is the lovely Hadley Brisdion.
He’s an 11 year old boy with Cerebral Palsy who loves sports and gaming.
The Aergo Health team visited him a month ago and learned about his postural seating needs through his mum, Sarah and his physiotherapist.
Hadley tends to have high tone on his lower limbs and sits in a scissored leg which causes pressure points on his knee joints. He is weak in his core tone and leans on the left hand side, and his pelvis tends to tilt forward.
With the support of his physiotherapist, the Aergo Health team set up the Aergo PS mechanical frame in accordance with Hadley’s body measurements.
It required some additional accessories including -
A Stealth pommel, which was attached to abduct his knees, and the team chose a swing away pommel to ensure he can transfer in and out of his wheelchair easily.
The Aergo PS has six air cells. Each air cell is controlled via the Aergo PS app which was installed on Hadley’s smart phone. The inflation of each air cell was set up collaboratively to the physiotherapist’s physical examination of Hadley’s position in the seat and Hadley’s feedback on comfort.
The six air cells are indicated on the App screen.
Each air cell provides five inflation levels, 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest. Inflation levels are indicated by colour changes on the App.
Hadley’s individual settings on his Aergo PS are -
Lateral left air cell is inflated to level 3 and left pelvis air cell inflated to level 2 to push Hadley to the midlines, correcting his tendency to lean towards the left.
The thigh support is inflated to level 3 to raise his knee higher and a lap strap is provided to bring his pelvis backwards. Inflation on the right lateral and pelvis are kept at minimum levels for a gentle support.
Lumbar air cell is also kept at the minimum and repositioned to Hadley’s lower back to provide support to his light kyphotic posture.
Throughout the set up of inflation levels, Hadley did not need to be moved out of the Aergo PS at all, demonstrating the ease of adjustment the PS app provides in positioning.
Since setting up the Aergo PS for Hadley, he has been actively using the system during gaming and happily reported to the Aergo team that he is very comfortable with the PS.
We are looking forward to evaluating his experience with clinically validated outcome measures in the coming months.
For more information about using the Aergo PS with children with Cerebral Palsy click here.
