WSSU Incorporates AmTrykes With Academics

When Winston-Salem State University assistant professor Dr. Anne Jenkins traveled to Lesotho, Africa in 2006 as part of a humanitarian mission, she promised one of the orphan girls there that she would return one day to deliver an AmTryke.

This past December, Dr. Jenkins was able to fulfill her promise as she traveled back to the southern Africa nation to reunite with her young friend and address the region’s need for improved occupational therapy services.

The girl, Tseleng, now eight years old, suffers from severe bilateral club feet which made it nearly impossible for her to move around without intense pain. She was given an AM-16 model AmTryke, which can be operated with just her hands.

“When Tseleng got on her new AmTryke it was a great moment,” Jenkins said.  “All the people from the surrounding villages who came by the orphanage that day were excited. I was so happy to be able to deliver to it to her because I know it will have an immediate impact on her quality of life.”

Jenkins, who serves in the department of occupational therapy at WSSU, was accompanied by two graduate students, Amy Lovett and Evelyn McGregor. In addition to keeping her promise to Tseleng, the purpose of Jenkins’ trip was to help the leaders of Lesotho develop new therapeutic programs, assess the needs of local children with disabilities and explore ways to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS in the area.

Tseleng, who lost both of her parents to AIDS, is indicative of far too many of Lesotho’s youth. Statistics show that over 247,000 children in the country have become orphans due to the AIDS pandemic and about 30,000 of those children suffer from disabilities. To make matters worse, the occupational therapy services in Lesotho are basically non-existent, which just two therapists from a neighboring country attempting to serve the entire population of 2 million people.

During their visit, Jenkins and her group collaborated with Lesotho’s College of Allied Health Training to study ways to tackle this problem. They also spoke with government officials about the need to improve the healthcare and social welfare services in the country.

At the end of their stay, Jenkins and her students pledged to support the College of Allied Health Training in Lesotho, especially in the fields of nursing and occupational therapy. They also plan to continue their efforts to educate Lesotho’s leaders on ways occupational therapy can be used as a tool to combat the AIDS epidemic.

This trip, however, was not the only AmTryke-related project the school has been involved in recent months. Over the past year, WSSU has emerged as one of the leading universities to fully embraced the AmTryke project and incorporate it into various academic initiatives. The school currently offers masters degrees in occupational therapy, physical therapy and rehabilitation counseling. AMBUCS National AmBility Advisory Board member Dr. Cindy Bell is also a professor in WSSU’s Department of Occupational Therapy. This February, three students in her graduate class – Brittney Foster, Charelle Harrison and Lakevius Robinson- performed a first-of-its-kind research project to determine if children with disabilities can benefit from AmTrykes in the areas of motor performance, peer interaction and environmental access.

To perform this study, three children with disabilities were selected from the surrounding community and given an AmTryke to take home. The children were all between the ages of four and seven years old.
The WSSU graduate students then conducted a series of interviews with the children and their parents in an attempt to gather information about their experience with the tricycles. From those interviews, several criteria were used to determine the overall impact of the AmTrykes in the lives of each child. At the end of the study, the results showed that all of the children experienced significant improvements in most of the evaluated areas.

Bell hopes to be able to enhance this study in the near future and possibly have their findings published in an academic journal.

“The AmTryke therapeutic tricycle has proven benefits to riders of all ages,” said Bell. “As we go forward, our goal is to study all of the ways it helps improve the lives of people with disabilities.”