We offer a free trial of this technology with a physical therapy evaluation (for those suited to care with this device), as well as the opportunity for continued treatment. We currently offer a special rate of $35 dollars per treatment and four treatments at a discount rate of $100 ($25 per treatment).

See a video demonstration:

Time magazine has a video of mirror box for lower extremity amputations.

\”Tricking the Brain to Feel No Pain: It\’s Done with Mirrors\”

Some hurts are forever. But now science is pushing back.

As published in Time:

Beyond Drugs

A Mirror as Medicine
The most intriguing cam therapy is the newest. It’s called mirror therapy. Well over half of amputees suffer from phantom-limb pain because, roughly speaking, their brains are confused. The motor-command center in the frontal lobe doesn’t register that a limb (or an ear or the nose) is gone. Consequently, it keeps sending nerve signals down the spine to the appendage. These signals can’t be received, of course, and the missing body part can’t transmit its customary neuronal cues back to the brain. The brain then responds by firing “pay attention to me” signals in its areas that control the arms or legs or ear and so on. These signals are interpreted as pain in the phantom limb.

Phantom-limb pain was recognized at least as far back as the 1870s, when many Civil War veterans complained that they were disturbed by “sensory ghosts.” Few treatments other than great gobs of opiates existed for phantom-limb pain until Vilayanur Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, took an interest in the subject a few years ago. And few neurologists and psychiatrists paid attention to Ramachandran’s work until thousands of U.S. service members began returning from Afghanistan and Iraq without all their limbs.

As Ramachandran writes in his new book, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human, when an arm is amputated, “there is no longer an arm, but there is still a map of the arm in the brain. The job of this map, its raison d’être, is to represent its arm. The arm may be gone; but the brain map, having nothing better to do, soldiers on.”

And so, in order to treat chronic phantom pain, one must trick this map into believing that a new road has been constructed. Because they deaden the senses, pain medications are the worst way to construct a new map. Psychotherapies — particularly mindfulness-based practices that urge patients to accept that they have lost a limb and learn to live without it — can change the brain’s map over weeks or months through rigorous cognitive therapy combined with behavioral therapy that focuses on recognizing that a limb is missing and strengthening other parts of the body to compensate.

But Ramachandran devised a way to trick the brain much more efficiently. Struck by the simplicity of his theory that phantom-limb pain was merely a symptom of brain confusion, Ramachandran reasoned that if the brain could be convinced the missing limb still existed, the central pain resulting from its loss would ease. So he placed an upright mirror between the two “hands” or two “legs” of an amputee. He faced the reflecting side of the mirror toward the whole hand — let’s say it’s the right one — which created the illusion that the left hand was still there. When Ramachandran tried mirror therapy with his patients, the results were so immediate as to be shocking. Patients who had suffered abominable agony for years suddenly “saw” their amputated limb and could move it naturally. The brain convinced itself that neurons were once again firing in the missing limb, so it finally dialed down its pain signals. Since then, other teams — including one from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center — have replicated Ramachandran’s case studies in (rather small) placebo-controlled clinical studies.

Not long ago, I visited New York University’s Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, where I met Mark Constantino, 65, who lost his right leg below the knee to Type 2 diabetes last year. His doctor, Jeffrey Cohen, who directs the limb-loss program at Rusk, used mirror therapy to help Constantino get back to normal functioning. For 15 minutes each day, five days a week for four weeks, Constantino would watch his left foot move — and, in the mirror, “see” his right foot also moving.

Constantino told me that the mirror-therapy sessions helped reduce the pain in his phantom limb from a fairly bad 7 (on a scale of 1 to 10) to an annoying but tolerable 2 to 3. The remarkable part: the benefit from four weeks of mirror therapy has lasted for months. Except for demonstrating the therapy for me, Constantino hasn’t used it since last fall.

Goodman, the alligator victim, sometimes uses mirror therapy by himself at home, but his doctor — Robert Hurley, director of the University of Florida’s pain medicine program — doesn’t employ mirror therapy in his practice. Hurley told me the therapy doesn’t have a strong enough basis in evidence quite yet.

And that’s where many CAM therapies stand: they show only promising anecdotal results. But research scientists and everyday pain specialists recognize that a combination of traditional therapies like acupuncture must work in concert with new drugs and psychotherapies in order to advance the fight against pain.

Silver Sneakers Day speaker Dr. Jeremy McVay gave out plenty of advice at the Bayside ‘Y’ on Wednesday.

Stay active. The rewards can be financial as well as physical and mental.

So said Dr. Jeremy McVay of McVay Physical Therapy, who gave a talk about staying active on Wednesday afternoon for the Bayside Family YMCA’s Silver Sneakers Day.

“Seventy percent of Americans get arthritis,” said McVay.  “Every hour of walking increases life expectancy by two hours.”

If you can walk for 30 minutes, five days a week, you’ll reduce your risk of dying prematurely by 20 percent, he said.

What other kinds of things can people do to stay fit?

There are three components of fitness, McVay said.  These are aerobic conditioning (walking, cycling, and swimming), flexibility (stretching and yoga), and strength (do some squatting, weight lifting or Pilates).

It’s a good idea to mix all three of these components if possible to get optimal fitness results, he said. Waterskiing is an example of an exercise that combines all three components.

McVay said that exercise in general is good to curb depression, heart disease, and arthritis, to control weight, and help deal with the symptoms of fibromyalgia.

He also stressed the importance of choosing a form of exercise that you find enjoyable, since that will help motivate you to stick with it.

You might not like to jog. You might not like to swim.  But maybe you like to dance. The important thing is that exercise should be a priority.

Not all exercise is good for you if you happen to have certain medical conditions.  People with osteoporosis, for example, need weight-bearing exercises to reap benefits. People with stenosis (arthritis in the back) can benefit by doing Pilates.

McVay stressed that sometimes exercise hurts and, if so, pain is not okay.  A little soreness is pretty normal after a workout, but real pain means something is wrong.

“Listen to your body,” he said.

It’s a good idea to check with your doctor to make sure certain kinds of exercise are okay for you to do, McVay said.

“Physically active people save $500 a year in healthcare costs,” McVay said in closing. And that’s a very big advantage to staying active.

Class size was limited and full. Serious topics did not keep the mood from being “Merry”:

Cane tips that we discussed are available at Amazon by clicking on these blue words.

YakTrax gripping device for shoes are available by clicking on these blue words (you will need to buy by shoe size).

Lecture given at the new Granoff Building, Martinos Auditorium in Providence, RI. The talk included topics such as shoulder impingement, inversion ankle sprain, ACL tear and lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow).

A beautiful day with  high winds, but many came out to support Brandon and his family.  McVay PT was present with friends, family and patients running.  Dr. McVay and his wife ran, and Dr. McVay placed third overall!

Down wind run at the start, up wind at the finish…

Stretching out people after running the race.  Thanks to all who came and helped or supported the cause!

Hello everyone,

McVay Physical Therapy is a sponsor of a 5k run, 2 mile walk at Colt State Park in Bristol on OCTOBER 16, 2011 to help raise money for Brandon. Please consider running with Kendra and me, walking, volunteering or come cheer us on to support Brandon and his family.

He is a nine year old boy from Riverside with Charcot Marie Tooth, a progressive neuromuscular disorder with no known cure. I know his father and have met him. He has quite the personality and uses an electric wheelchair and a ventilator. His family needs help for home and vehicle modifications. See more at www.helpbrandon.com

Please pass this on to friends and family that might be interested.

Registration is available on the website.

Children Under 12 – Free
Registration Children Over 12 and Adults – $30.00 | (June 1, 2011 to August 27, 2011)
Race Day Registration – $40.00

See the brochure:

ClickHereForBrochure

See more by clicking here.

Jeremy McVay was the featured lecturer at the YMCA for its annual “Active Adults Fair”. He spoke on “Exercise, the Fountain of Life, and even Youth?” on May 18, 2011. Both the lecture and the event were well attended by the local community from Bristol, Warren, Barrington and East Providence.

Here is a picture of the booth.