Robotic arm draws out-of-state attention

By Sue Scheible The Patriot Ledger ‘My name is Edna Potts and my 36-year-old daughter had a massive stroke in January of 2006, six days after giving birth. It affected her right side, including her speech, walking and her arm,” Potts, who is 59 and lives in Plantsville, Conn., wrote in an e-mail. “She would like to know if any more studies are being done on the robotic arm brace that she may participate in. She is desperate to get her arm back. Out of the whole ordeal, the loss of use of her arm is the most upsetting thing for her. “I am desperate to get her into the program you wrote about. She is so young to have this happen to her. PLEASE!!!” Potts saw an article in The Patriot Ledger about a new robotic arm brace that was clinically tested on five people at Braintree Rehabilitation Hospital and was approved in July by the federal Food and Drug Administration. In the short-term trials, the Myomo arm brace showed promise for improving arm strength years after a stroke. Potts’ daughter, Rene Hall, was a middle-school teacher with one child, now 11, when she gave birth to her son, now 19 months. Right after the birth, everything seemed fine, and then six days later, Hall had a major stroke. Her high blood pressure during pregnancy was a possible cause. I contacted Theresa Hayes at Braintree Rehabilitation Hospital about the e-mail and she called Potts to tell her the hospital plans to make the Myomo arm brace available for more outpatients in the fall. Hayes put Hall on …