Motivation

 

In theory, vestibular stimulation therapy made sense: to improve balance, you must engage in activities that stimulate and challenge it. Unfortunately, Mackenzie was not capable of performing any of the exercises on her own, so the Mahers had to improvise and provide the motion-induced stimulation for her. The family did their best, however, after several weeks of back-breaking therapy sessions involving tumbling and rolling Mackenzie around on the floor, the therapy had to be discontinued because it was just too difficult to accomplish.

 

 

 

Realizing they had to find a safer and more efficient way for providing Mackenzie with vestibular stimulation, Kevin and Rhonda searched extensively for therapy equipment, but soon discovered no such device existed.

 

Kevin, with 20 years of experience working with robotic systems, became determined to engineer a solution. He envisioned a rotational chair made of plywood, a child's car seat, and various items of hardware. In his garage on a summer afternoon in 2002, he constructed a small rotational chair that made it easy and safe to administer effective motion-induced vestibular stimulation to Mackenzie. Unknown to him at that time, he had just invented the GyroStim. 

 

From the very first rotation, the new device was a success and Mackenzie loved it! In a short period of time, Mackenzie's balance began to improve. Even more surprisingly, Mackenzie began making unexpected gains in other areas such as gross and fine motor skills, trunk control, even her energy level, mood, and speech were improving at a faster rate. It became apparent that the motion-induced vestibular stimulation had triggered a cascade of additional gains well beyond the intended purpose of balance improvement.

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While Mackenzie's daily  physical and cognitive therapies were certainly beneficial, the addition of the motion-induced stimulation seemed to be the catalyst, the missing piece of the puzzle, that enabled rapid gains in her balance and other abilities.