Patent Number: 054460751
Section: summary

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates in general to therapeutic exercise putties and more particularly to a method and apparatus for monitoring a patient's progress in manipulative therapy using exercise putty. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Borosiloxanes exhibit peculiar physical characteristics which make them suitable for therapeutic use. Borosiloxane bouncing putties are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,541,851, issued to Wright, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,677,997, issued to Kaiser et al. Both of these patents are fully incorporated by reference herein. These bouncing putties have the peculiar characteristic of being able to be kneaded and worked as a putty-like material, while at the same time exhibiting elastic properties under a greater degree of force. A borosiloxane bouncing putty has long been commercially available as a toy under the trademark "SILLY PUTTY". Because of their characteristics, bouncing putties have found application in physical therapy to strengthen muscular control and performance of, e.g., patients'hands. Because a lump of exercise putty is by its nature a shapeless mass, there is no easy way for a physical therapist (or the patient) to monitor the progress being made in manipulating the putty. Different amounts of kneading or manipulation will, in conventional exercise putties, create the same result--the same shapeless mass. There is no good way to measure the amount of manipulation which has been done. A need therefore exists for a method and apparatus to monitor the progress made by a patient in exercising his or her hands. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to one aspect of the present invention, a method of manipulative therapy is disclosed by which a first malleable mass having a first color is supplied to a patient. A second malleable mass having a second color different from the first color is also supplied to the patient, and the patient is directed to knead or manipulate the two putties together. The putty is kneaded or manipulated until such time as the two colors are completely blended together to yield a uniform color which is a result of blending the first color with the second color. According to a further aspect of the invention, the malleable masses provided to the patient are based on borosiloxane and are pigmented to different colors. According to another aspect of the invention, the second malleable mass is significantly smaller and has a more concentrated color than the first malleable mass. Once this second malleable mass has been completely combined with a first malleable mass, further highly colored malleable masses are provided to the patient for combination with the product of the last combination. This process is repeated a number of times suitable for the patient'therapy or until such time as the combined mass has achieved a color which can no longer be altered by additional amounts of putty, such as a uniform dark brown color. It is preferred that apparatus according to the invention be provided to physical therapists and the alike in a kit including a relatively large mass of relatively colorless exercise putty, and a plurality of relatively small masses of putty having distinctive colors, and each being chromatically distinct from at least one other small mass. In this way, the combined putty mass will change color as additional amounts of small, highly colored putty of varying hues are added to it. The present invention confers a technical advantage in that the progress of the patient's manipulative therapy can be closely monitored. If a large, relatively uncolored mass of putty is poorly combined with a smaller, highly colored mass, the two masses will simply be lumped together and will be visually distinct from one another. At an intermediate stage, the masses will have been blended together such that stripes of color will appear in the combined mass. Only after a considerable amount of kneading and manipulating will the mass attain a uniform color which is the product of combining the colors in the original two constituents. This provides the physiotherapist or physician some indication of the amount of working being done by the patient, allowing the therapist or physician to monitor the patient'progress.