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Tracy Gray’s 7-year-old daughter, Madyson, loves to play cards. But with ataxia, a neurological disorder that inhibits her control of muscle movements, Madyson has a hard time holding her cards. Intent on finding a way to play with her daughter, Gray went to the Technical Exploration Center (TEC) and found a wooden stand that would hold Madyson’s cards for her. “Now we can play together, no problem,” Gray says.
Located in a small office suite across from the Bangor Police Department, TEC is a hidden treasure for people with special needs. A community outreach program of Husson University, the Technical Exploration Center has over 2,000 pieces of equipment that assist people of all ages and physical or neurological challenges.
“Our biggest problem is getting people to know that we’re here,” says Lynn Gitlow, co-coordinator of the program and director of the occupational therapy program at Husson University.
Anyone is welcome to visit TEC and try out their equipment on-site. To borrow equipment to take home or use with clients, you must be a member. Yearly membership dues range from $50 for an individual to $350 for a school or business. (Many health care organizations and school systems are already members.) With a referral, a TEC therapist can also conduct a formal evaluation, determine your abilities and suggest appropriate equipment, tools, and devices to help maximize your potential.
From adapted switches for people with limited movement to special gardening tools for those with arthritis, the TEC center has a piece of equipment for anything you could possibly need to make life easier. But it’s more than just an equipment-lending library—TEC also provides evaluations, resource materials, and will help clients modify existing equipment to better suit their needs. The largest program of its kind in Maine, it serves over 500 clients from Portland to Aroostook County.
TEC was started in 1998 as a part of United Cerebral Palsy of Maine. When money became tight in 2001, Husson University came on as a collaborator. Three years ago TEC moved to their current location at 34 Summer Street and became completely under the Husson banner.
The collaboration between TEC and Husson has been fruitful for both entities. TEC employs work-study students from Husson to help run the day-to-day operations. Video and public relations students from both Husson and the New England School of Communications have used TEC as a class project, providing free marketing materials including a short video and brochure.
“The video has been a great marketing tool as it’s hard to put the scope of what we do into words,” Gitlow says.
The TEC office is set up like an obsessive compulsive’s dream. Everything is expertly organized and laid out according to the need it’s intended for. All of the equipment is clean and in great shape, ready to be lent out to members at a moment’s notice.
“As a physical therapist for the Bangor School Department, the TEC Center is a very valuable resource,” says Ellen Van Vranken. She takes advantage of TEC’s lending program to allow her students to try out adaptive equipment and assistive technologies at school. “The staff has a wealth of knowledge regarding all kinds of low- and high-tech strategies and solutions for everyday challenges my students face.”
While the premise of TEC is to provide tools to make people’s lives easier, they also have tools to help people have fun. They have a switch-adapted video camcorder as well as adapted pool sticks, an adapted crochet hook, and fishing poles that help people cast and reel. “The most important thing is to help people do what they want to do,” Gitlow says. “I don’t know how many times we hear people say, ‘I just want to get out on the golf course’ or ‘I want to email my friends.’”
“One of the biggest challenges is getting elders to come in here because they have a notion that if they use our devices it means they’re disabled,” Gitlow says. “That’s not what it’s about. It’s about making life easier. We’re not a medical entity.”
She points out that you don’t even have to be diagnosed with a disability to use their services. Gitlow recently helped an elderly man find something to help him open his pasta jars. “It’s creative problem solving,” she says. “That’s what I love about occupational therapy and working here.”
Colleen Adams, an occupational therapy assistant and co-coordinator with Gitlow, shows off a Lomak touch-free computer keyboard located at a computer cluster. The keyboard is controlled with a laser that’s mounted on a visor so that someone with a spinal cord injury can use their head to move the mouse to surf the web or type emails. This particular piece of equipment was donated and costs $2,000.
“Some of this stuff is so expensive that it’s nice to be able to try it out here before people invest in it,” Adams says.
Madyson’s ataxia makes her too shaky to write with a pen or pencil. Her hands are also too shaky to use a computer mouse. “We went to TEC and found a joystick mouse that worked perfectly,” Gray says. “It was $500. The school bought one and we bought one for home. Because of TEC, we didn’t go out and spend that money on something that didn’t work.”
From professional conferences and vendor suggestions to trips to Marden’s, Gitlow and Adams are always on the lookout for a new handy tool. Both women provide formal evaluations to match a person’s abilities and needs with the device to enable them to do what they want to do.
“From a $7,000 communications device to a couple of $5 walkie-talkies, we’ll find whatever is the most appropriate,” Gitlow says.
Their creativity has helped the duo establish a new program that was launched in October called TEC-Assist. It’s the first statewide system for receiving, repairing, and redistributing quality used assistive technology equipment to the public. TEC-Assist accepts donations of gently used wheelchairs, walkers, canes, reachers, and other equipment, which they refurbish and sell back to the community at the price it cost them to fix.
“We have a limited amount of space so we’re particular in what we take,” Adams says. Not only is this program saving people money but it’s saving landfill space as well. We’re always looking for ways to be more sustainable,” Gitlow says. TEC-Assist is only open by appointment, so be sure to call before heading over to its space on Center Street.
Since the Grays started using TEC’s services, they have donated things they’ve purchased that Madyson has outgrown to TEC. “It feels great knowing that we found something that works for our child,” Gray says, “and now somebody else can try it for their child.”
