If you look at the staff directory at Bythedale Children”™s Hospital in Valhalla you”™re now going to find a job title seldom seen at pediatric specialty hospitals: Rehabilitation Engineer. Blythedale recently added a rehabilitation engineer on staff so it can bring in-house the creation of special items to help meet the needs of some patients.
The engineer is Andres Guerrero, a native of Ecuador, who earned a bachelor”™s degree in a specialty called mechatronics engineering at the Escuela Politechnia del Ejercito in Ecuador. Mechatronics incorporates both mechanical and electrical systems. It can cover robotics, electronics, computers, telecommunications, industrial automation and other elements.
Guerrero came to the U.S. to attend the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he earned a master”™s degree in engineering. While there, he began looking at possibilities for using rotobotics equipment as part of pediatric therapies to help the children with mobility issues.
“I was able to learn about therapies, about the equipment that”™s used with children, and I found that I actually wanted to do something to use the science to help children,” the 27-year-old Guerrero told the Business Journal. “I arrived here in the U.S. three years ago, studied for one year at the Birmingham and then worked for them for one year and then came to Blythedale.”
So far at Blythedale, Guerrero has worked on creating or adapting about a dozen different toys and devices for children to use for recreation, as part of their therapy or to ease everyday chores. He described currently working to redesign a switch so it will be easier for a child to reach and operate it in order to control an electric wheelchair.
“It will be almost like a lever that they can pull on to activate the wheelchair,” he said. “We have been working on designing some other switches that can be specific for disabled kids,” he added.
When Guerrero learned it was difficult for disabled children to use a toy in which rings needed to be stacked vertically, he redesigned it so that the rings could be lined up in the horizontal plane.
“The reaction that we normally have when we give them new toys is that they are curious about the new object that they have received. When they discover what they can do with it they are really happy,” Guerrero said.
Although some of the items Guerrero has produced have been created with the help of Blythedale”™s state-of-the-art 3D printer, much of what he does requires skills that normally would be associated with model-makers, electricians and jewelers.
“The 3D printer is a great tool for creating prototypes. It allows us to create many ideas, many sizes, using different materials,” he said, adding that the 3D printer also is a time-saver.
“There may be many engineers around the country working in mechatronics but probably not many actually in hospitals. It”™s really a new idea of bringing another specialty to the hospital and that”™s what Blythedale is trying to do. It”™s trying to bring together people with different specialties to work for the benefit of the patient,” Guerrero said.
