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Outrigger Canoeing
The Winning Wheels Outrigger Canoe program is yet another expansion of the therapeutic and recreational opportunities for residents and their family members. The program emphasizes the residents' abilities rather than limitations, promotes cooperation, builds confidence, and increases independence. Canoeing also presents a unique way for residents to work on improving balance, gross motor coordination, endurance, strength, range of motion, as well as enhancing socialization with teamwork, patience, communication and respect for others. Winning Wheels' "Aumakua Spirit" (a Hawaiian name which translates to "ancestral spirit guides accompanying one on a journey") is essentially two separate canoes joined by stabilizing bars. The outrigger is 30 feet long, weighs nearly 400 pounds, and seats nine people.
Adaptive Video Games
The resident computer lab at Winning Wheels is equipped with a variety of adaptive equipment, including a Nintendo Wii connected to a 42-inch LCD monitor. Unlike traditional hand-held video games, where users sit on the couch exercising little more than their thumbs, the Wii features digital sensors that let users virtually play the game. In Wii Sports, a game that comes with the console, users mimic the motions used in sports like bowling, tennis and baseball. In other words, the game may be virtual, but the physical exertion is very real. The Winning Wheels Recreational Therapy Program utilizes this type of adaptive video game technology to promote physical and occupational therapy. There's also a psychological impact that may speed up the recovery process. Participants are able to interact and participate in activities they thought they were no longer capable of enjoying.
Duet Cycling
Winning Wheels residents can enjoy the outdoors on a specially-adapted "Duet" bicycle. Residents and staff both enjoy this one-on-one time together and the opportunity to get out on the town! The bicycle is a colorfully designed wheelchair tandem that combines the latest in cycle technology with advanced wheelchair design. It provides a unique recreational opportunity for residents to enjoy the great outdoors like never before.
Power soccer is the first competitive team sport designed and developed specifically for power wheelchair users. The game is played in a gymnasium on a regular basketball court. Two teams of 4 power chair users attack, defend, and maneuver an oversized soccer ball in an attempt to score points on a goal. The Winning Wheels Power Soccer team, "The Prophetstown Posse" has competed in tournaments around the midwest, including Rockford, Chicago and the 2004 World Invitational Tournament in Indianapolis. When asked about their participation in power soccer, team members agree that it has provided motivation to pursue possibilities rather than accept limitations. They also said it provides them an opportunity to make a lot of new friends. Power soccer breaks down barriers, opens doors, and promotes the possible. Meaning, that regardless of the score, everyone's a winner!
White Oaks Therapeutic Equestrian Center (WHOA) offers therapeutic horseback riding and animal-assisted activities as well as other related services for people with disabilities. White Oaks was established in 1995 for the purpose of providing recreational, educational, therapeutic, and social opportunities for persons with disabilities who participate in the Winning Wheels Brain Injury Comprehensive Integrated Inpatient Rehabilitation Program. WHOA programs improve physical capabilities and functional skills as well as furnish students the opportunity of added leisure time, physical activity and social interaction.
Winning Wheels has established a fine arts woodshop in the Therapy Annex. Numerous residents are kept busy sanding, staining, painting and building birdhouses, feeders, and picture frames. They are also refinishing furniture and wood doors. The Winning Wheels Woodshop offers residents the opportunity to work and be creative. Future plans are to build and market small pieces of furniture, hanging planter boxes, trellises, and bat houses to make the woodshop a self-sustaining enterprise. Several items have been sold at silent auction and a few tools have been donated, enabling the woodshop to run on a limited budget.
IREX
Winning Wheels is pioneering an innovative new technology that brings efficiency and fun to Physical Therapy. Using patented video technology, residents are immersed in a virtual reality environment, where they are guided through clinician-prescribed therapeutic exercise programs. Through interaction with on-screen objects, residents complete a comprehensive and clinician-directed exercise program. Resident performance and compliance is measured and recorded on a real-time basis by the system's camera technology. The IREX system can be tailored to the specific needs of the residents, by isolating certain body parts and/or movements. Here's how it works . . . Sophisticated camera technology captures the resident's image on a computer monitor, which allows the resident to see themselves move and interact with objects in the virtual environment. IREX uses no wires or other peripheral devices, allowing users total freedom of movement. IREX then guides the resident through an on-screen exercise routine. Exercise programs consist of sports games such as soccer, volleyball, snowboarding, and other adventure-oriented exercise programs. These exercise programs incorporate many facets of human movement, including balance, hand-eye coordination, flexion, abduction, rotation and other functional movements. The visually-stimulating environment and interactive mode of the IREX system captures the resident's concentration and enthusiasm for the exercise program. This creates a welcome distraction from the standard repetitiveness and relative discomfort of conventional exercise for the resident. IREX tracks the movement of the resident's body and extremities within the clinician-prescribed range-of-motion criteria. This data is recorded in an output report to evaluate resident performance to see if the resident is performing relative to prescribed exercise targets.
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Power Soccer
Therapeutic Horseback Riding
Woodshop