Patients in a rehabilitation center make their own technical aids
Help yourself and the rehab lab will help you. When we import the “do-it-yourself” principle into a center that takes care of people with neurological and orthopedic disorders, it results in a “rehab lab”. In Berck-sur-Mer, in Pas-de-Calais,
the Jacques Calvé center of the Hopale foundation opened its own last May. Since then, the 3D printer has not stopped running to carry out patients’ projects.
“The idea is to make the patient the actor of the realization of his own technical aid”, summarizes Julien Pager, head of the center of physical and cognitive rehabilitation of the center. And for these patients, carriers of neurological and orthopedic conditions, technical assistance takes the form of an object adapted to facilitate daily life. “It could be a suitable fork, bottle opener, cup holder or supermarket cart token,” he lists. Except that instead of buying these items off the shelf, it is the patients who design and manufacture them themselves.
“An occupation that values patients”
This therefore takes place in the rehabilitation laboratory, a room equipped with a 3D printer and a computer used for modeling objects. Upstream, the centre’s teams had to collect funds to buy the equipment and then train themselves in the use of the printer, and especially the modeling software. This knowledge is then passed on to patients. “During workshops, patients determine the technical help they need. This aid is modeled on the software and then printed in 3D. They are accompanied by the staff, but those who can use the computer station with voice commands, eyepieces or with an adapted mouse, ”explains the head of the rehabilitation center.
Certainly, most of the objects created, like telephone holders or bottle holders, can be found in the trade. But it is not the corn. “It is above all an occupation that values patients. This also allows them to manufacture tailor-made aids perfectly adapted to their morphology, ”says Julien Pager. The goal is not to save money, even if it is. “We can manufacture accessories at a lower cost to repair wheelchairs, for example, instead of buying often expensive parts,” he continues.
Caregivers and patients are just beginning to discover the endless possibilities offered by 3D printing. On the personal side, in the medium term, we can already imagine designing orthoses or prostheses with this process. “For some patients, it is not impossible that this will give rise to vocations of retraining”, hopes Julien Pager.