A new move for pediatric patients and their road to recovery that’s taking hold at one Jacksonville hospital.
You won’t find any traffic lights or stop signs in this hallway of Brooks Rehabilitation, but that won’t keep 3-year-old Mark Robinson from tearing-up the imaginary track.
Doctors suspect an autoimmune issue led to his May 10 collapse and subsequent hospital stay. Mark’s grandmother brought to tears just thinking about it.
It’s the therapy she says that’s essentially brought Mark back to his typical playful and rambunctious nature.
“After 13 days he got up one evening, my daughter came in and he said he wanted to walk to mama and he proceeded to walk,” Qwendolynn Lang said, “He’s weak in some areas but once he strengthened back up, got his regular strength back he’ll be back to normal.”
Steve Walczak and a group of physical therapy residents put together 6 of the cars over a weekend.
Modeled after an effort by University of North Florida engineering students, the set at the Brooks facilities can be used by patients with varying abilities.
“I see a lot of problem solving skills emerge from it, on day one he could hardly turn at all, but now he’s starting to maneuver around the hallways avoid obstacles, avoid people,” Walczak said.
Brooks Rehabilitation says they hope to expand the program to include more cars and more facilities in the next year.