At the Charles Lazarus Children’s Abilities Center, we develop innovative rehabilitation approaches designed to improve the health and well-being of children and young adults.
Therapy as Play
Neurological rehabilitation often requires many long hours of therapy for meaningful recovery, and it can be hard to motivate children to complete their therapies. We strive to develop therapeutic approaches that are as enjoyable as possible—and customized to each individual patient. Our mission is to make life-changing neurological therapies that are so much fun that our patients never want to stop playing. We use several approaches:
- Adaptive Gaming: Video gaming, also called esports, is growing rapidly all around the world. It has captivated hundreds of millions of participants. But, it was designed for the typically abled. Many people with movement difficulties are unable to use the standard gaming controllers due to diminished grip strength and finger control. The Charles Lazarus Children’s Abilities Center uses adaptive gaming equipment from companies such as Logitech, Microsoft, Statespace, and Warfighter Engaged to develop a personalized gaming setup for every child, regardless of ability. We incorporate adaptive gaming into our therapy.
- Neuron Up: A digital web platform, Neuron Up strives to support and improve neurorehabilitation and cognitive function. It allows health care professionals to personalize therapy and track a patient’s progress. With thousands of available exercises, tools, and real-life simulators, Neuron Up can help patients exercise basic cognitive functions as well as activities of daily living and social skills. Areas of cognitive rehabilitation include attention, orientation, memory, gnosis, executive functions, praxis, language, social cognition, and visuospatial skills.
- Neuroelectrics: This high-tech company offers non-invasive and high-definition electrical brain stimulation technology for personalized neuromodulation. By measuring and modifying brain function, it aims to restore brain health, minimize disabilities, and create a better life for patients. Our vision is to use this technology to offer digital, personalized brain therapy and improve global health, one patient at a time. The equipment allows personalized brain monitoring and stimulation, to improve physical and cognitive function.
Play Safety
Our Play Safety Program aims to equip schools with the latest and most innovative methods of concussion identification, assessment, and rehabilitation to close the knowledge gap and better help K-12 education professionals, children, and families understand concussion. Here are some ways that the Play Safety Program is supporting local schools in our area:
- Concussion Education: We provide concussion resources and education for schools, parents, and children.
- A State-of-the-Art Concussion Clinic: Our team of highly-trained clinicians who specialize in concussion care uses state-of-the-art technology to measure the symptoms of concussion in children.
- Bring Play Safety to You: We work with local schools and community centers to make sure the staff feel fully supported should a child experience a concussion on their watch.
- For more information about our concussion program, please email us at: concussion@mountsinai.org
Leveling the Playing Field
In our efforts to address social and economic inequalities by building educational programming and collaborating with community partners, we hope to ensure every child has access to resources that allow them to live up to their full potential. Our Level the Playing Field effort includes two programs.
- The Generational Youth Mentors (GYM) Program: In collaboration with Social Creatures, the Family Room, and STEAMPark, we have developed the GYM Program, which uses virtual peer mentoring. It allows us to leverage the opportunities brought by communication technologies to provide all individuals with equal opportunities to learn. Through its innovative and flexible curriculum involving digitized multimedia materials, GYM strives to reach diverse learners, regardless of ability, disability, gender, socioeconomic status, or cultural and linguistic background. Delivered through a cross-age peer mentoring framework, the curriculum promotes children’s academic self-esteem and growth through social connectedness with a like-minded student role model. The program instills flexibility and social support into educational instruction, maximizing learning opportunities for all students.
- STEMgirls @ STEAMPark, Inc.: This New Jersey-based organization strives to build better futures for historically underserved kids by developing out-of-school programs that offer educational, social and wellness support. In partnership with STEAMPark, the Charles Lazarus Children’s Abilities Center provides students with technological and educational resources that they would otherwise not have access to. One of these offerings is STEMgirls Online Weekly Workshops, which offers year-round academic and social-emotional connectedness for girls in 3rd to 8th grades via a virtual learning program. STEAMPark is also one of our founding partners in the GYM Program.