About Interactive Metronome
New Technology Helps Children and Adults with Learning and Performance.
Our Center Offers Interactive Metronome® Treatment. Interactive Metronome can help with….
- ADD
- ADHD
- Autism
- Asperger Syndrome
- Brain Injury
- Cerebral Palsy
- Developmental Delay
- Language Deficits
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Parkinson’s Disease
- Spinal Cord Injury
- Stroke
The Palmetto Language & Speech Center offers the Interactive Metronome® (IM), a computer-based technology to enhance motor planning, sequencing and timing which can improve learning and a variety of types of performance that depend on the ability to plan and sequence actions and ideas.
Interactive Metronome® rhythmic and movement treatment exercises have been found to improve motor planning and coordination in both children and adults in academic and sports endeavors. In addition, IM performance correlates with academic achievement in areas such as mathematics, language, reading, and attention to task. In a recent clinical study the Interactive Metronome® was found to produce significant gains in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in the areas of concentration, motor planning, control of aggression, language processing and reading. These findings are consistent with recent research on the growth of the brain that indicates that environmental influences, not just genetics, can facilitate a child’s development.
The Interactive Metronome® involves the principles of the traditional, musical metronome, combined with the precision of a personal computer to create engaging interactive treatment exercises. The program uses head phones along with hand and foot sensors to coordinate movements to computer-generated musical beats. Like training wheels on a bicycle, a patented auditory guidance system progressively challenges participants to improve their motor planning, sequencing and rhythmic timing performance.
Brain-Based Therapy Advances Patient Recovery.
Technology Yields Dramatic Functional Improvements for Stroke Patients & Others
Patients who suffer from neurological and motor impairments such as Stroke, Traumatic Brain Injury, Parkinson’s Disease, Limb Amputation, Multiple Sclerosis, or Balance Disorders have renewed hope for a stronger recovery thanks to a therapy technology called Interactive Metronome (IM).
Originally used by clinics, hospitals and universities across the country to help children with developmental disorders, this brain-based program now is being applied to rehabilitation. In the past two years, IM has been used to produce significant gains for patients who have suffered an injury or illness in the neurological and motor rehabilitation spectrum.
IM’s impact on neurological recovery focuses on improving the brain’s ability to perform two critical functions: motor planning and sequencing.
Motor planning and sequencing are central to human activity – from the coordinated movements needed to walk or climb stairs, to the order of words in a sentence to provide meaning. IM is the only therapy tool that improves those human capacities by systematically strengthening a person’s rhythm and timing.
“The brain’s efficiency and performance depend on the seamless transition of neuronetwork signals from one area of the brain to another,” says Dr. Neal Alpiner, Medical Director of Rehabilitation at William Beaumont Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, who also is Interactive Metronome’s Rehabilitation Medical Director. “IM works by augmenting the brain’s processing speed along the neuroaxis.”
Physicians and therapists across the country have adopted IM as a therapy program, resulting in some extraordinary recoveries by their patients:
- A Florida High School Principal suffered a massive aneurism. Early prognosis limited the patient’s hope for recovery to spending the rest of his life on his hobbies of sculpting and drawing. After three weeks of IM therapy the patient’s goals were re-written to return to work. Today, he is back at his job as Principal of a Magnet High School for the Arts in Southwest Florida.
- A 36 year old man suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident, 18 years earlier. After years of rehabilitation he still had an unstable “waddle-like” walk, very jerky limb movements and had developed a severe speech stutter. After completing IM therapy, the patient displayed significant improvement in his speech stutter and dramatic improvement in his balance and gait (walking), fulfilling his dream of learning to dance.
- A 46 year old mortgage broker sustained a Cerebral Vascular Accident (Stroke). After initial recovery the patient still suffered from severe dizziness with any head movement, difficulty performing mild problem-solving and poor balance and coordination. After 11 sessions with IM he could do jumping exercises without a loss of balance, perform executive level problem-solving and his dizziness had decreased significantly.
Interactive Metronome treatment provides a structured, goal-oriented process that challenges the patient to synchronize a range of hand and foot exercises to a precise computer-generated reference tone heard through headphones. The patient attempts to match the rhythmic beat with repetitive motor actions. A patented audio or audio and visual guidance system provides immediate feedback measured in milliseconds and a score is provided. Over the course of the treatment, patients learn to:
- Focus and attend for longer periods of time
- Increase physical endurance and stamina
- Filter out internal and external distractions
- Improve their ability to monitor mental and physical actions as they are occurring
- Progressively improve performance
Because the IM addresses underlying motor planning and sequencing capacities, considered fundamental for a wide range of cognitive, behavioral and physical processes, it is being used for a variety of conditions in addition to those mentioned above. These include Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Sensory Integration Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorders.
June Maranville is a certified Interactive Metronome specialist. Call today for a free short form assessment at (803) 356-9833.
Interactive Metronome, Inc. is based in Weston, Florida. The company offers its patented Interactive Metronome® treatment through 3,000 certified IM providers in more than 2,000 clinics, hospitals and universities throughout the United States and Canada. (Call toll free 877-994-6776 or visit www.interactivemetronome.com)