The IMF strategy

...is the means by which individuals with paralysis as a consequence of having suffered a

• stroke,
• spinal injuries,
• multiple sclerosis,
• head injuries or
• injury to the plexus

can achieve relief

The aim is to produce a functional improvement.

The success of our strategy has been proven by numerous clinical trials and positive reports from those who have used the strategy.

We provide those affected with the know-how to use the ability of the central nervous system (CNS) to show neuro-plasticity and self-organisation, in order to achieve their goal.

This learning strategy gives many of those affected who, until then, had little or no perspective of improvement an effective and striking method in their hands, to substantially improve the quality of their life and that of their relatives, even after many years of paralysis.

The basic idea

For the brain scientist and neurobiologist Hüther,

The striving to restore the original, completely functional body image is the aim of the IMF strategy. This is achieved by confronting the current pathological body image with the original body image from the past. The individual who has been affected has had experiences with the original body image in the period before he or she was affected. These are stored as positive experiences in his biographical long-term memory. The aim of the IMF strategy is to give the patient the know-how to re-experience the experience acquired at a previous time.

IMF stands for Imagination, Motor activity and Feedback.

Imagination is the ability to remember and perceive internal or mental images in the conscious state with the eyes closed. Within the framework of the IMF strategy, the individual affected will remember experience before his or her illness in which he himself or she herself was a participant.

Motor activity is the result of this imagination (visualisation) which accompanies the muscle activity in the complete skeletal musculature and which is recognised by the sensors (superficial EMG) of the technical medical equipment MfT Z².

The patient experiences feedback or registers a signal when the EMG signal associated with the imagination reaches a predefined magnitude µV) and muscle stimulation is triggered by MfT Z² which the affected person readily perceives and experiences as being pleasant (vibration or massage effect).

The aim

The true basis for an improvement in function is seen in structural plasticity. However, this reorganisation is stopped following injury by growth-inhibiting factors in the damaged tissue. The aim of the IMF strategy is to create a growth-promoting milieu at the site at which there is nerve damage and thereby enable the so-called sprouting process, a sprouting out of new fibres.

The prerequisite for the application

is that the client must be able to remember the images or connections stored in memory before the time of occurrence of the damaging events (i.e. there must be no retrograde amnesia). The patient should be able to communicate.

Counter-indications

heart pacemaker, inflammations or thromboses in the affected extremities.

Myofeedback device MfT Z²

The MfT Z² is a user-independent, technical medical device equipped with a separate surface EMG, an EMG amplifier and two stimulation generators working independently of one another. Following the reaching of a predefined EMG threshold value, the random surface EMG triggers two-channel, low frequency muscle stimulation (myostimulation) (positive feedback).