Page 8 - Mobility Management, August 2019

mm beat
A Helping Hammie
How a “Simplified Anatomical Model” Created from 3D Printing Is Educating Stakeholders About Hamstrings & Hip Flexors
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is
a three-dimensional, hands-on model worth when teaching wheelchair users, their families, or new thera- pists about the impact of tight hamstrings? What is that model worth when it can cut through barriers between professional peers who don’t speak the same language?
T. Sammie Wakefield, OTR/L, ATP (retired), was looking for a simple, efficient way to demonstrate positioning principles, even if the people she was talking to didn’t speak English as their first language, or didn’t know the terms that therapists commonly use.
So as therapists often do, Wakefield created her own answer: a humanesque little guy named Hammie.
A Simplified Anatomical Model
As Wakefield says on the MeetHammie.com Web site, “There must be a way to communicate how tight hamstrings can cause poor sitting posture without
Hammie at work: The left image shows Hammie with tight ham- strings that have not been accommodated. Notice the postural change in the right photo, which shows Hammie’s tight hamstrings now being properly accommodated.
needing to use a common spoken language or medical jargon.”
Wakefield calls Hammie a “simplified anatomical model.” It has a head with a nose and a line of vision, a flexible spine, a pelvis, legs, knees, and feet. Arms and
a ribcage are intentionally lacking, Wakefield said, so people watching a demonstration aren’t “distracted visually” from Hammie’s main teaching point: “The pelvis
6 AUGUST 2019 | MOBILITY MANAGEMENT
is greatly affected by the muscle groups that attach it to the legs.”
Hammie’s right leg is set up to demonstrate hamstring issues; the left leg demonstrates hip flexor issues. As Wakefield says in a Hammie tutorial video, “What happens at the lips and the fingertips begins at the hips. The pelvis, its position and movements, ripple up the spine and have profound effects on how the shoulders sit on the ribcage, how the head sits on the neck and how much the eyes can see.”
All of this is easily demonstrated via Hammie’s “hinged” knees and the cords threaded through each leg. As an example, when the cord “hamstring” on the right leg
is tightened, mimicking the tightening of a hamstring, and the right knee is moved into extension, Hammie’s
hip straightens out. Hammie’s pelvis tips backward and slides forward on the seated surface.
In this position, Wakefield says, the body’s instinct for “head righting” pulls the head, neck and spine forward to facilitate seeing the environment ahead. This compro- mised posture can cause problems with breathing and swallowing, while the forward position on the seat and the additional weight bearing on the tailbone can raise pressure injury risk.
While the effects of hamstring tightening typically require a lot of words or PowerPoint slides to explain, Hammie demonstrates the concept in an “Aha!” kind
of way that transcends language barriers and clinical terminology. Hammie can also demonstrate 24-hour postural support concepts and the postural effects of tight hip flexors and asymmetrical limited hip flexion, and can be used to help plan for specialized seating to address, for example, windswept postures.
New Possibilities Via 3D Printing
Thanks to 3D printing using nylon with chopped carbon fiber, the current Hammie model is more durable than Wakefield’s earlier wooden versions, and the latest Hammie is now available to order on the MeetHammie. com Web site. Hammie is manufactured and assem- bled in the United States, and every purchase benefits Eleanore’s Project, a non-profit organization that supports children and families living with disabilities in Peru.
The non-profit is named in memory of the daughter of
MobilityMgmt.com
HAMMIE IMAGES COURTESY SAMMIE WAKEFIELD