Since Jean posted my blog in the community forum - I'll give better details of what we did with Rob's constraint therapy.

It's important to know that Rob is not right handed, so being forced to use an affected hand, that is not dominate was especially difficult for him.

He started by having a cast put on his left arm on a Monday - see the pictures in the Gallary that I posted to see how they casted him. He had the cast on for five days. We found the best way to measure improvement was in his ability to feed himself. The first day of having a cast he had to drink through a straw, and he could only eat with his fingers. Getting food onto his fork was almost impossible. By the end of the first five day session, he was drinking without a straw and he was able to get food onto his fork, and into his mouth.

He had his cast off for two days, and put back on again the following Monday. This time the cast was on for a week and his improvement was noticeable at a faster rate. By Thursday he was getting his coffee cup to his mouth a lot easier (see the picture in the gallery) and eating a lot faster. I'm not sure how much difference it made, but his attitude and frustration got worse the longer he had the cast on. He is a busy guy, and really needs to get things done. He couldn't stand being slowed down with the cast.

I is my opinion, that he did very well. If I had it my way, he would have gone to therapy while having his cast on so that his OT could have worked closely with him, getting him to use some of those muscles that still are having a hard time "waking up". As it was, he did good, using the muscles he could, and the improvements were from sheer determination often to just get the food in his mouth.

I asked Rob what he thought about this therapy. "I think it made a difference" he told me. He also noticed that after his cast was off, he found himself reaching for things with his right arm. He said he felt that this kind of therapy helps to reverse the effects of learned non-use. He added that even though the therapy was extremely frustrating, that two weeks was about the minimum and shortest time you would want to do it.

I'm hoping the negative aspect of this experience will be like childbirth and he will forget the pain, and would like to see in the middle of winter, if he will be willing to go through this again.