WALLINGFORD - Garrett Mendez can move his arm, but it's nothing compared to what he can do when he's wearing the Myomo e100.

The victim of a massive brain-stem stroke 2½ years ago, the 21-year-old Mendez has made dramatic gains in recovering movement, gains the robotic device for stroke patients is helping accelerate. With the robotic brace attached at the elbow, sensors on his right triceps pick up the neuromuscular signal from the brain. With a faint whirring sound, the gears of the robot respond and help him complete the movement smoothly and more efficiently.

"It doesn't hurt," said Mendez. "It just feels like I'm moving my arm."

That's a long way from the days immediately following the stroke, when Mendez's right arm was clutched close to his chest.

"Garrett has had very good recovery for a traumatic injury," said Robert Anderson, Mendez's occupational therapist at Gaylord Hospital. "We're hoping this device will help stimulate more fluid movement."

Though results aren't always so dramatic, Anderson said the robotic assistance has left at least one other patient "smiling ear to ear" because of movement gained for the first time in years.

"It has a lot of potential," Anderson said.

The device, developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, encourages re-establishing the communication between nerve signals that can be so debilitated by stroke. Experts once assumed that the ability to recover from stroke waned after the first three to six months, but techniques like use of the Myomo are helping alter that perspective.

Gaylord is now part of the early exploration into its potential, the second hospital selected for its use by Boston-based Myomo Inc., following the Braintree Rehabilitation Hospital, in Massachusetts.

"They're actually helping bring this new technology out," said Maureen Liberty, a Myomo spokeswoman.

Gaylord has been using the device since the beginning of the year and is now a premier site for Myomo, which stands for "my own motion."

That the hospital is now offering the Myomo device in therapy is to a large degree thanks to the experience of Mendez and his family.

"The family was hungry for anything that could maximize his recovery," said Tara A. Knapp, Gaylord's vice president of development. "The Mendezes helped to put us on the radar screen early. We have a large stroke population, so we would be a natural fit."

Mendez grew up in Trumbull and was a four-year hockey and lacrosse player at Notre Dame High School in Fairfield. He was 19, attending Western New England College, when during a game right before Thanksgiving in 2005 he smashed head first into the boards playing hockey.

When his mother tried to wake him the following morning, he was unresponsive. He'd also recently had strep, recalled his mother. "We'll never be sure what caused the stroke," she said.

Though initially encephalitis was suspected, after three days the family was told Garrett had suffered a massive brain-stem stroke. It rendered him paralyzed and unable to speak or eat on his own.

"It doesn't affect you cognitively, but devastates you physically," said Eileen Mendez, who recalled that at the time there was considerable question about whether her son would survive.

"I didn't know anything about brain-stem injury then - and it was good I didn't," she said, "because I would have flipped."

After 20 days in intensive care, Garrett Mendez went to Gaylord, which specializes in long-term care and rehabilitation.

"When we got here, he couldn't see, couldn't speak, couldn't swallow; he was fully paralyzed," recalled his mother.

Eileen Mendez said she thought he'd be there six months to a year, and was surprised when eight weeks later he walked out of Gaylord on his own, using a walker.

"They were amazing, absolutely amazing, with what they did with him," she said.

Stacy Melillo was Garrett's occupational therapist while he was an inpatient at Gaylord. In November 2006, she was attending a neurotherapy conference in Massachusetts when she saw the robotic device at a Myomo Inc. exposition booth.

Because Garrett had displayed an alacrity "for everything we have to offer" in rehabilitative therapy, Melillo recommended that his family investigate whether he could participate in clinical trials for the device.

"Just knowing his family, they are pretty much people willing to try anything," she said.

While he did not turn out to be a suitable candidate for the trial, Garrett's family met with Kailas Narendran, the researcher who with John McBean began the Myomo project in a 2002 MIT graduate robotics class.

The device was FDA approved in April of last year. Gaylord now uses three Myomo sets, in small, medium and large sizes.

"I pushed it, because I wanted that for my child and I felt it would help other stroke survivors," said Eileen Mendez. "I wish it was FDA approved when he was an inpatient. I think we would have seen a faster return."

Funding was not available in the hospital's operating budget, but Gaylord was able to provide the equipment and training thanks to donors, many of whom want to provide support specifically for stroke patients, said Knapp.

Myomo works differently from treatments that send electrical impulses through muscles.

"In our case, our system detects electrical activity and then the robotic element helps the patient move," said Narendran. "You, the patient, have to think about moving and initiate the move. So the patient is always in control."

The brace fits at the elbow, and the therapist has to place the sensors correctly so that electrical activity in the muscle can be relayed to a control unit. The sensors monitor and amplify the muscle activity, and the therapist can adjust the extent of the assistance provided by watching the control unit's LCD display of settings and muscle signals.

Practicing with the device is a way of retraining the body's nervous system. "Ultimately the goal with stroke patients is to make it so you don't need devices," said Narendran.

"I wish I had the device earlier in my recovery," said Garrett Mendez.

"I'm glad we have it now," said his mother.

Eileen Mendez and her husband, Gary, are real-estate appraisers, and a jittery housing market and getting Garrett the help he needs have not been easy on the family. Eileen and Garrett Mendez also speak to support groups, as well as to university classes. Garrett, said his mother, has also been back on the ice, passing the puck back and forth with one of his best friends.

"This has been the culmination of research and development," said Narendran. "Now the device is FDA cleared, people are using it and people are getting better, which is fantastic."

jkurz@record-journal.com

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