Christmas in July

It's easy to understand why everyone at the Permian Basin Rehabilitation Center is excited - they just received more than $20,000 worth of new equipment divided evenly for all four of their rehabilitation departments.

Pilot International grants and fund-raising proceeds made the upgrade possible.

"We're excited. It really is like Christmas around here," Katherine Hollmann, director of speech therapy, said.

Regan Weaver, a physical therapist at the Permian Rehabilitation Center, spent part of Wednesday demonstrating equipment in the new sensory integration room to the local Pilot Club. It was the first time local Pilot Club members could see how their fund-raising proceeds from the 2007 Pilot Club Christmas Tree helped the center.

Weaver was showing off a textured pad made up of primary-colored squares. One square vibrated under her weight, one lighted up while another beeped aloud. The therapeutic device is designed to help calm any child with delays, disorders and disabilities displayed in their nascent phases of development, Hollmann said.

Local Pilots of the Pilot International Foundation donated an initial $4,800 grant last year to go toward the equipment. What was not expected was the $19,500 in additional donations raised from the proceeds last Christmas.

"We've never ever had this much money to buy this equipment for patients," Hollmann said.

The center has been in operation for 55 years. It opened during the polio epidemic in the 1950s. Now they help children and adults with a large variety of disorders.

A lot of the new equipment helps with proprioception and vestibular disorders, which means that the children have a difficult time moving through space as well as handling touch.

A new piece called the "squeeze machine" gives children with proprioception disorders a calming and secure feeling, said John Trottman, certified occupational therapy assistant at the center.

Other new pieces help autistic children who can have severe socialization problems and may have trouble communicating, Hollmann said.

One 6-foot-tall device encourages children to speak. When they speak into a microphone, the machine lights up in primary-colored bars, paralleling the child's tone.

"It looks like a rainbow," Hollmann said.

This stimulates the child's sense of sight, which encourages them to say the same word again, but more emphatically.

The sensory integration room complements the more tedious levels of therapy that go on at the center such as speech and language. The new equipment allows therapists to calm and focus the child before they go into therapy.

"Some kids are so out of control that we need to do preparatory work before they start with therapy," Trotman said.

Trotman noticed major advancements in therapy once the new equipment was put in use.

"I have already seen some major stuff," Trotman said.

People learn from their five senses during the developmental phases of their life, but if a child suffers from a variety of neurological disorders then they need help to integrate senses, Hollmann said. This new room helps make that possible.

This is a dream come true for the therapists at the center. They made a wish list for exactly what they needed years back, hoping they would one day get the money. Little did they know that efforts of Pilot International would make this possible.

"We've been wanting this for years," Weaver said.

All the proceeds from Community Christmas Tree have always gone to the center, but this is the first year the center saw such a big amount.

"We were able to give them more than $20,000 this year," Linda Terrell, club senior vice president, said. "We used to be excited to give them $5,000."

FACT FILE

The Permian Basin Rehabilitation Center offers four types of therapy for all ages:

>> Audiology.

>> Occupational therapy.

>> Physical therapy.

>> Speech therapy.