For Patients
GyroStim has helped countless people from all walks of find their breakthrough in therapeutic recovery when nothing else has worked to diminish or alleviate their symptoms.
Overview
What is GyroStim?
GyroStim is an automated, computer-controlled, multi-axis rotational and positional chair.
What is it used for?
GyroStim is used to induce therapeutic stimulation of the human sensorimotor system.
Is GyroStim effective and safe?
Yes. GyroStim has passed all regulatory safety tests, is FDA-cleared, and has been designated by the FDA as a Breakthrough Medical Device.
Who uses GyroStim?
People from all walks of life and all levels of ability use GyroStim for therapeutic treatment of balance disorders, vestibular dysfunction, and related symptoms resulting from injury, illness, and neurological or aging-related conditions. Seniors with poor balance and at risk for falling, Olympic and professional athletes at the top of their game, people with mild to severe TBI--- and virtually everyone in between can benefit from GyroStim.
Why do people use GyroStim?
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The GyroStim is in use at clinics for administering vestibular and sensorimotor stimulation to assist in the treatment of balance disorders and vestibular dysfunction and their associated symptoms resulting from injury, disease, and advanced age.
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GyroStim has helped countless people with their recovery when nothing else has worked to diminish or alleviate their symptoms.
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GyroStim's innovative technology and methodology offers treatment strategies that can break through a recovery plateau and accelerate your recovery, allowing you to get back to school, sports, work, and the things that matter to them.
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GyroStim profiles with lower levels of intensity are administered to patients with rehabilitation needs.
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GyroStim is accessible to all individuals. No one is excluded.
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GyroStim G3 is FDA-cleared for clinical use and is designated by the FDA as a Breakthrough Medical Device.
How does GyroStim work?
Your ability to perceive, process, and react to your surrounding environment (your receptive field) is directly tied to the functional performance of your sensorimotor system: the complex network of sensory and motor systems located throughout your body that interconnects with your brain.
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Perceive: sensory information from the eyes (vision), ears (hearing), vestibular system (perception of gravity, motion, and spatial orientation), proprioception (skin, muscles, joints) and other peripheral sensory structures is transmitted to the brain stem
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Process: the perceived sensory information is processed throughout the cerebellum and cerebral cortex (sensory integration)
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React: the brain stem fires impulses to muscles throughout the body in reaction to the perceived and processed sensory information
Sensorimotor System Processes
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Head injury, illness, neurological conditions, and the aging process can interfere with the performance of this complex system. When this happens, balance problems, reduced physical and cognitive abilities, and other chronic symptoms may occur.
Fortunately, the sensorimotor system can be rehabilitated. Just as physical injuries can be rehabilitated with therapy comprised of exercises designed to challenge and strengthen the injured structure, the sensorimotor system can be rehabilitated with a regimen of exercises designed to challenge and improve the functional performance of the sensorimotor system.
GyroStim works by incrementally challenging and improving the functional performance of the sensorimotor system. It moves your body in pre-programmed motions through space to generate motion-induced stimulation of the sensorimotor system. The motions induce a flood of simultaneous stimulation to sensory structures located throughout your body (eyes, ears, skin, joints, etc.) that challenges and rehabilitates your ability to perceive, process, and react to the world around you. Each therapy session is precisely controlled and data-driven, allowing for individualized and optimized therapy, while protecting the patient from overstimulation.
A typical GyroStim session
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A GyroStim session typically lasts 30 minutes and is made up of one or more therapeutic stimulations, a.k.a. "runs." Each run is typically between 15 and 60 seconds long. There will be a rest period between each run, followed by a progress assessment.
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Everyone begins GyroStim therapy with slow, predictable, non-inverting motion profiles. This allows subjects of all levels of abilities the opportunity to experience the sensations and activities involved with the therapy without feeling motion discomfort or sensory overload.
The video AT RIGHT illustrates incremental advancement
of therapy intensity from Level 1, to Level 3, and to Level 5.
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Multiple laser detecting targets are located on the safety perimeter around the GyroStim. During the run, the patient may be tasked with using a hand-held laser pointer to hit as many targets as possible. Each target hit is communicated to the GyroStim software for processing and for displaying on the monitor. You may also be tasked to engage in cognitive challenges while attempting to hit targets.
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The combined motions and targeting activity challenges the performance of the sensorimotor system that runs throughout the human body and brain, including visuomotor, visuospatial, and visuocognitive performance. The laser target detection system generates a score of the patient's number of target hits which provides a quantifiable measure of the subject's ability to respond to each level of motion intensity. It also adds a gamification aspect to the therapy, making the sessions fun while motivating patient effort.
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At the end of the run, your subjective response, i.e. headache, dizziness, nausea, brain fog, and other possible symptomatic responses are recorded and assessed together with your objective response, i.e. target hits per minute. This information will be used by the GyroStim operator for assessing how well you are responding to the current level of intensity of therapy and for guidance on how best to proceed with the next run.
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GyroStim has a library of pre-written motion profiles that offers a broad spectrum of therapeutic variables and intensities. The library provides the operator with quick access to GyroStim's wide range of capabilities. When used with the GyroStim Run-to-Run strategy, providing individualized, optimized, and effective sessions has never been easier.