Monday, April 16, 2007: Owen Thompson, a Billerica resident, rushed into a burning house wearing nearly 90 pounds of equipment. He never imagined the fire would leave him out of work for more than six months while he received extensive physical therapy and surgeries.

“I had an entire ceiling fall on me,” said Thompson. “After the fire was out, we were clearing the ceiling and wall to ensure there was no hidden fire and trying to take down the second floor ceiling, and the ceiling all of a sudden let go. They literally had to come with axes and saw me out. I sustained [damage] to the hard cartilage in the rear of my [knee cap]. Part of it actually sheared off.”

 With experience as an athlete, Thompson knew that the strain he felt in his knee as he was sprawled across the plaster waiting for help was not a good sign. After his injury, Thompson began physical therapy three times a week at the New England Rehabilitation Hospital Outpatient Clinic in Billerica in May.

When Thompson wasn’t seeing any improvement with his knee, he had remedial surgery to repair the hard cartilage damage and returned back to the clinic for his second round of therapy with physical therapist Heidi Brinklow.

After reading extensive studies on clinics and centers across the country, such as Ohio State University Medical Center and Children’s Hosptital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn., which use the system on pediatric cystic fibrosis patients, Brinklow and the staff at the clinic decided to bring it on board.

Since bringing it in to the clinic in October the Wii has become a staple tool with many of the clinic’s neurology patients and orthopedic patients like Thompson.

“We’ve done all different types of balance activities and stuff,” said Brinklow. “Originally, they used it with a lot of geriatric patients with getting them to move. We’ve been using it more with orthopedic patients as rehabilitation for ankles, knees and shoulders.”

Rather than traditional sedentary videogames involving hand-held controllers, the Wii allows the player to interact and accomplish specific tasks through large body movements instead of finger driven buttons and joysticks.

“There is a program in the system where it can show you where your body is relying on each foot,” said Brinklow. “So when you step on that balance board, it’ll give you a visual feedback on that screen of how much weight you are putting on your right foot and how much weight you are putting on your left foot. So a lot of patients may think they weigh equally on both feet, but [in fact] there is a discrepancy between the two.”

The system is currently providing Thompson with the visual feedback and proper receptive feedback to help improve both his balance and coordination. Programs within the system, such as yoga, allow users to view where improvement is needed in their balance while allowing them to view their center gravity point.

“You can strengthen to no end, but if you don’t work on your balance proper reception you are at risk for re-injury,” said Brinklow. “Especially with him, where he is going into a fire and there is a lot of smoke, and he is not going to be able to see where he is going, so his body has to be able to react to changes in terrain and different types of surfaces and one quick wrong step he can re-injure his knee.”

Thompson said people generally don’t realize the extensive recovery time for public service workers like firefighters and police, who are involved in physically straining jobs on a daily basis. While most can return back to work on crutches, firefighters like Thompson need the extra 100 percent recovery to return back to work. 

Recovering from an injury like Thompson’s requires retraining key muscles, which the Wii is a great aid for, said Brinklow.

Thompson said the visual impact he receives from the program is a great aid for improving his balance.

“It gives me a visual representation of where my balance is or isn’t compared to my good leg and bad leg,” he said as he rocked back and forth on the white platform attempting to beat his ski record. “It kind of gives you an idea of ‘Wow, I think I’m getting better and I’m moving in the right direction, but I still have a long way to go.’”

Thompson said the visual entertainment aspect is also a big help in his therapy.

“When you can play a video game, and you can look at something on the screen and you can try to move yourself down a ski slope and get between poles, or put a ball around a board that you are moving on the screen, it takes you around from having to lift weights and do different types of exercise with the physical therapist which at time it can get boring,” Thompson said.

Thompson is now at the point of moving his knee more freely.