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North Canyon's improved surgery recovery process

Posted at 5:19 PM, Apr 30, 2021
and last updated 2021-04-30 20:33:58-04

GOODING — North Canyon Medical Center is hoping to give its patients a much more efficient recovery process post-surgery with a Biodex physical therapy machine.

North Canyon acquired the machine in late 2019, and due to the coronavirus, staff was not able to display this new piece of equipment. The hospital got the machine from funds raised through purchases at its thrift store location, where it sells items for $1 to $3.

The store location managed to raise enough and secure the funding needed to purchase this appliance.

Now that it's in their possession, the Biodex will be used to monitor a person's strength in their muscles and joints both before and post-operation. Then the patients and doctors work together to get the strength in the affected area back to normal.

“In the past, we would say, oh for this surgery or this incident or injury, it will be 8 weeks before you can x,y, or z," said Shellie Amundson, the community relations director for North Canyon. "Well, now, with this device, if the device can illustrate the strength of that limb, we can release those patients earlier from physical therapy and get them back to their life.”

Doctors say that it is a much more effective treatment since the updated technology allows them to dial in and work on more specific areas where a patient may be having trouble.

“We can assess strength and program and tailor our plan of care, if you will, to the individual, what their deficits are,” said Derrick Lyons, a physical therapist for North Canyon. "It's an assessment tool, it helps us measure the internal components that we can't do just by eyeballing things."

The machine allows lets patients be more in tune and have a greater understanding of where they stand in their recovery process.

“There is a stage in the process of therapy where their progress isn’t as obvious to them as it is to the therapist. So, for them, we can start to print data and it gives them goals to say we are trying to get you to here on this device. Look how far we’ve come, we only have this far to go,” said Amundson.