{"id":3115,"date":"2024-03-15T11:58:45","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T01:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/uncategorized\/the-rec-help-christopher"},"modified":"2024-03-18T12:14:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T02:14:52","slug":"the-rec-help-christopher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/news\/the-rec-help-christopher","title":{"rendered":"The Rehabilitation Engineering Centre help Christopher to take to the sky"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rehabilitation Engineering Centre help Christopher to take to the sky<\/h1>\n
\"L-R

L-R – Will, Brooke and Alan from the Rehabilitation Engineering Centre with patient Christopher.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Rehabilitation Engineering Centre (REC) at STARS designs and produces custom modifications for people with disabilities to improve their quality of life.<\/h4>\n

For some clients it might be wheelchair seating which allows them to sit up better or relieve pressure but for others it\u2019s customisations that let them to participate in recreational or work activities.<\/p>\n

For Christopher Hills, who has cerebral palsy, the Centre has assisted him with managing pain so he could continue his work flying drones and testing his drone control system.<\/p>\n

For the REC team the challenge was to address Christopher\u2019s pain while still allowing him some freedom of movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristopher was experiencing pain in his shoulder, arm and hand from his involuntary movements and as a result, he wasn\u2019t able to fly his drone for very long.<\/p>\n

He needed something that would contain his right arm to help manage the pain, but not restrain it, as this would only exacerbate the involuntary movements,\u201d said REC Engineer Brooke Rankin.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ended up designing and building a wall which replaced the armrest on his chair and could be removed when not needed. Here at the Rehab Engineering Centre we love providing solutions
\nfor clients which allow them to get back to activities that are enjoyable and meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Christopher, his new customised arm support system has not only enabled him to fly his drone for longer periods of time, it could lead to other people with disabilities also enjoying the past time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an accessibility consultant and one of my projects is designing a drone control system that quadriplegics can use with head movements. Throughout the test phase, I was experiencing a lot of arm and hand pain related to my involuntary movements – and it got to the point where I couldn\u2019t work anymore out on the field,\u201d said Christopher.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new arm support system built for me by the Rehabilitation Engineering Centre plays to my complex neurological tendencies and reduces pain and movement throughout my arm, hand, fingers and thumb. Medications weren\u2019t appropriate for me, due to the need for me to stay alert as a drone pilot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new support means I have been able to get back out in the field and I\u2019m now in the process of getting my control system certified by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rehabilitation Engineering Centre at STARS assisted Christopher Hills in managing his cerebral palsy related pain so he could continue his work flying drones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":3116,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3115"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3121,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions\/3121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}