Moving toward recovery

In Cook Children’s Rehabilitation Care Unit (RCU), the staff focuses on family-centered care while helping children, teens and young adults receive treatment for neurological injuries or illnesses. This is where patients undergo rehab before being released from the medical center.

Recently, generous donations from the community allowed the RCU to obtain a new piece of equipment to more safely treat patients: the Erigo® Pro. It’s a robotic system to help get patients up and moving. Essentially, this machine safely brings a patient from lying down to being fully upright from a progressive, angled standpoint.

Nico, a 17-year-old patient, was the first to use the machine last spring. He had been in a car accident and was unable to walk due to his injuries, which included two broken femurs and several torn ligaments. While being treated at another local hospital, he also experienced a stroke, and that was when he was transferred to Cook Children’s for neurological rehabilitation.

When he first came to Cook Children’s, Nico had not been able to stand for more than a month. His therapists first used a standard tilt table, but his body didn’t tolerate being in an upright position. The staff also experienced some difficulty monitoring his blood pressure. So, they used the Erigo Pro.

Unlike the traditional tilt table, the Erigo Pro has the ability to monitor a patient’s blood pressure during use. It also can robotically move the patient’s legs. This is an important function because it can be used to get the patient’s blood pumping before tilting them, making it less likely that they get dizzy and fall. The machine can move their legs to simulate walking, which helps to get a patient “walking” before they can do so on their own.

Nico’s therapists moved him all the way up to a standing position while maintaining a few precautions. Initially, he was not able to put any weight on his right leg, so their first goal was to help him tolerate being in the standing position. As he continued to progress, they used the machine for gait mechanics, to simulate normal movement patterns and address his sensory motor functions.

“I love this machine,” said Nico. “When I first got to the medical center, they told me that I wouldn’t be able to walk for a long time, at least three months. This machine helped me to get into the movements of walking again and just doing regular stuff. It helped me walk a lot faster than I was supposed to. It was only two months after the accident and I was already walking again.”

This device also takes the physical burden off the caregiver. Previously, in order to get Nico’s blood pumping before tilting him, two people would manually move his legs while he was still lying down.

Thanks to funds from donors, innovative technologies like the Erigo Pro are available to patients like Nico, allowing us to safely expedite their recovery.

“Before the accident, I was a football player trying to get to college to do football. But with the accident, I can’t do that anymore. And now I can walk again. It helped me to walk again and it’s just so great, honestly.” 

– Nico, 17, first patient to use Erigo Pro at Cook Children’s