World-first therapy puts dad in touch again so he can cradle daughter

BEING able to cradle his baby daughter, Adele, in his arms was a precious gift that Damian Zammit thought he would never get to experience.

Damian Zammit can now help wife Steph care for their baby Adele.

BEING able to cradle his baby daughter, Adele, in his arms was a precious gift that Damian Zammit thought he would never get to experience.

But a world-first brain therapy has restored the Victorian man's sense of touch, after he lost it to a stroke.

"It's absolutely incredible to imagine what it may mean to a person to be able to regain a sense of touch," Dr Leeanne Carey said.

"To be able to connect with people, to feel for the sake of feeling; to hold your wife's hand, to hold your baby or to be physically intimate with someone."

Dr Carey, the founding head of the Neurorehabilitation and Recovery research stroke division at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, said one in two stroke survivors lost the ability to feel where their limbs were in space or recognise everyday objects in their hands.

She said traditional rehabilitation helped restore movement after paralysis, but if stroke survivors still lacked a sense of touch they would never use the limb effectively.

Dr Carey is trying to overcome this devastating side effect with a new, specialised rehabilitation program called SENSE.

The therapy enhances existing connections in the brain and even creates new ones.

As a carpenter, losing the ability to use his hands was a particularly cruel complication for Mr Zammit.

In 2010 he suffered a brain aneurism while working out at the gym. But after surgery to repair the problem, he suffered a stroke.

"I woke up six weeks later, 21kg lighter," he said.

He struggled to speak, walk or eat unaided.

"I felt like I'd been hit by a train," he said. "I couldn't even pick up the remote to change the channel."

Charting Damian Zammit's recovery.

His wife, Steph, said they had to postpone their wedding.

"There were lots of tears, it was a very emotional and difficult time," she said.

After 18 months of rehabilitation, he had made good progress by learning to speak and walk again, but he still did not have a sense of touch.

When Mr Zammit met Dr Carey, he failed even the most basic tests. He could not distinguish between a cup and a book simply by feeling the objects behind a curtain.

Dr Carey's therapy involves getting patients to use sensation in one limb as a reference point, using anticipation trials so the patient's sensory system learns to receive and process a sensation.

The therapy tries to reroute the brain away from the areas left damaged by the stroke and create new pathways using areas that haven't been required before.

After the SENSE therapy, Mr Zammit was able to feel a greater range of textures and distinguish between objects.

Slowly he has been able to begin to use his hand to perform everyday tasks - like holding Adele.

He is also beginning to savour the feeling of using his hands to craft objects again, including helping to build a friend's carport.

Dr Carey said he still lacked the fine manipulation skills, but he could use the hand to stabilise items.

Mr Zammit said: "I'm still not 100 per cent, but I keep going on in the hope that it will get there."

Mrs Zammit said she was proud of his progress and dedication. "It's been very hard, but he's so determined, he's amazing," she said.

Dr Carey said the most promising part of the therapy was that stroke survivors could expect gains, even years after the actual stroke occurred.

florey.edu.au/sense