Easy access

Matheny student Daniel Gaudreau, assisted by Christine Mayercik, uses the eye tracker to click on a Taylor Swift music video.

Matheny student Daniel Gaudreau is able to select his favorite music videos by gazing at a computer screen. It’s part of a new indirect access communications program made possible by an $8,451 grant to the Matheny School from the Summit Area Public Foundation. With the grant, Matheny is training students with medically complex developmental disabilities to control a computer by using visual tracking and scanning technology.

Gaudreau is learning how to use this technology with assistance from Matheny speech-language pathologist Christine Mayercik. For example, he chooses Taylor Swift and Gangnam Style music videos over a video clip of President Barack Obama appearing on the David Letterman Show. “You need to look for two green lights,” Mayercik advises Gaudreau. “Then an arrow will take you to the next screen, and the finger pointer will take you to the video.”

The equipment used for this project was purchased with funds from the SAPF grant and has been set up on a dedicated computer table that will allow students easy access. “The trial group of students is using the eye tracker during therapy sessions,” Mayercik reports. “Students are able to maneuver the cursor around the screen and use either an eye blink or maintain the cursor in one spot for a predetermined amount of time to activate a mouse click. PowerPoint is used for practice activities where students have to use either one click, to change a slide moving through a presentation, or two clicks to activate an animation and then change slides.”

Once students become comfortable with this technology, they will be encouraged to begin using it during off-program hours with support from Matheny’s recreation therapy staff.

Teaching students to use technology such as the eye tracker system is integral to Matheny’s goal of improving the lives of its students and patients. This technology not only facilitates education and increases leisure activity options, it also enables unprecedented levels of communication between the students and patients and their teachers, family and community.

Morristown Medical Center is one of Matheny's partner hospitals in its transitional nursing program.

Matheny has completed the first year of its program, designed to improve the quality of transition care for patients who are admitted to acute care hospitals, and the initial results have been very favorable. A grant from the Robert Wood Johnson New Jersey Health Initiatives program enabled us to provide transitional nursing care to inpatients, residents of our group homes and outpatients from the Matheny Center of Medicine Dentistry.

In the first year of this program’s operation, from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012, twenty-eight patients were followed into and from our partner hospitals Morristown Medical Center, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick and Somerset Medical Center in Somerville. The program ensured a smooth transition among care settings and the transmittal of vitally important patient information, such as a patient’s medical history and suggested strategies for communicating with non-verbal patients. In addition, information about individual orthopedic and positioning needs and other specific medical needs were readily available.

The project’s goal was to reduce the number of hospital readmissions of patients with developmental disabilities. The readmission rate of Matheny patients since the project’s beginning has been 7.1%. In the 10-month period immediately preceding the start of the program, the readmission rate was 25%.

From left, Arts Access director Eileen Murray; Matheny adult patient Rasheedah Mahali; and Café Azzurro owner/chef Beni Mavraj.

Café Azzurro, located on Main Street in Peapack, NJ, is the newest food sponsor for Full Circle 2012: Unexpected Art, the annual celebration of Matheny’s Arts Access Program, which enables people with disabilities to create fine art, assisted by professional artist-facilitators. The northern Italian restaurant joins cocoLuxe fine pastries, Peapack; Gladstone Tavern, Gladstone; 3 West, Basking Ridge; and Village Office Supply, Somerset, all of whom have provided food and beverages at past Full Circles.

Full Circle will be held from 3-6 p.m., Saturday, November 3, in the Robert Schonhorn Arts Center at Matheny. For more information or to order tickets, call (908) 234-0011, ext. 260, or email pcats@matheny.org.

Volunteer firefighter Thompson Ross, fully outfitted as if he were getting ready to fight a fire, visits with Matheny students Nicholas Barros, left, and Jack Harter. Ross, a Peapack-Gladstone resident, is an emergency medical technician (EMT) in Cedar Knolls, NJ. At left is Matheny personal care assistant Mulualem Yihune.

Elementary students at the Matheny School have been learning about fire safety and firefighters. So, when the Peapack-Gladstone volunteer Fire Department invited us to bring some of the students to the station for a visit, it was not only fun, but a real learning experience as well.

P-G Chief of Police Greg Skinner, who is also a volunteer firefighter, demonstrated several pieces of equipment, introduced some of his fellow volunteers and explained that the class could be interrupted at any time if the alarm went off, signaling a real fire in the twin boroughs.

The fire department visit is an example of how skills and behaviors learned in the classroom are practiced during interactive trips to various community resources. We’re very grateful to the Peapack-Gladstone volunteer firefighters who made time to spend time with our students.

Matheny teacher Karen Dakak uses an iPad to help Nicholas Barros see some of the equipment better.

“Out Any Place” by Jason Weiner.

“If I saw this show in Chelsea, I would be impressed.” That’s how Dan Fenelon, curator of the visual arts exhibition at Full Circle 2012: Unexpected Art, describes the visual art that will be on display in the Robert Schonhorn Arts Center at Matheny from 3 p.m.—6 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 3. Arts Access enables people with disabilities to create fine art, assisted by professional artist-facilitators. Full Circle is the annual celebration of the Arts Access Program.

Forty-five pieces of contemporary visual fine art will be on display in a gallery reception beginning at 3 p.m., followed by a 4 p.m. stage presentation showcasing choreography/dance, drama and poetry, all created by Arts Access artists. Fenelon is an award-winning artist who continually gives back to local communities. His work has been shown in galleries in New York, Miami, Boston, Philadelphia and Santa Fe, and he recently completed The Peace Summit Mural in Newark. “You can expect to see the work of some very impressive artists at Full Circle,” he says. “And the work is moving from the geometric abstract style to aspects of folk or urban art.”

“Mom” by Michael Arin.

For more information about Full Circle or to order tickets, call (908) 234-0011, ext. 260, or email pcats@matheny.org.

Raking leaves and helping to spruce up the courtyard outside the Matheny Center of Medicine and Dentistry were these Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation volunteers. From left: Sewhan Chon, Karin Hunziker, Ana Bastiani-Posner, Holly Crosbie-Foote, Duncan McKechnie and Lori Tempsick.

On October 4, Matheny received hands-on help from 14 employees of Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (NPC), who helped clean up and beautify our grounds.  The employees were participating in the company’s 16th annual Community Partnership Day, a global initiative within the Novartis Group that reaffirms the company’s commitment to social responsibility.

According to Kevin Rigby, vice president of public affairs and communications at Novartis, Community Day enables the company to “share our resources with the communities where we live and work, provide employees with meaningful opportunities to give back and make a positive, long-lasting difference in people’s lives.”

Peter Longa, surrounded by many of his nursing colleagues. He’s holding a congratulatory painting created by Pearl Chiang, a nurse-artist, standing to his left.

Peter Longa, a native of Sudan who was forced by civil war to leave his country in 1991, joined Matheny as a personal care assistant three years later. A recipient of a Matheny Nursing Scholarship Award, Longa received his nursing certificate from Raritan Valley Community College in North Branch, NJ, and, while there, was awarded the Joanne Nitcheky Sergeant Award for excellence in clinical nursing. In 2006, he was selected to receive the Governor’s Nursing Merit Award in the Registered Nurse Post Acute Category. Longa earned an MSN at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey and recently completed his doctorate in nursing practice program, also at UMDNJ.

Since 2010, Longa has been the  night nursing supervisor at Matheny, and on one recent morning, as he was preparing to leave for home, his colleagues surprised him with a congratulatory breakfast.

Longa, after recovering from his surprise, talked about “the spirit of family at Matheny,” which has kept him here for 18 years. In a 2004 article in Advance for Nurses, Longa had talked about the Matheny patients. “You need to get to know them in order to communicate,” he said. “I think nursing is all about caring, taking care of people. To me, that is the bottom line.”

And no one does it better than Longa. “When I come here in the morning,” said Steve Proctor, president, “I see Peter, and I know everything is okay.”

Longa, after receiving his doctorate, accompanied by his wife Poni, son Tomor and daughter Sophia.

Matthew Detgen, greeting his parents, Marie and Don Detgen, at Back-to-School Night.

Many of Matheny’s students and patients are non-verbal. To help them communicate, teachers and therapists provide them with state-of-the-art assistive technology, including a variety of augmentative and alternative communications systems. Thanks to a recent donation by The Friends of Matheny, the Matheny School has a brand new supply of augmentative communication switches, which can be used by students to express themselves.

One of the recent beneficiaries of this gift was Matthew Detgen, a non-verbal student who was able to work as a greeter at the Matheny School’s Back-to-School Night. Stationed in the main lobby, Detgen activated switches that said: “Welcome to Back-to-School Night” and “I’m Glad You Could Make It.”

As part of a collaborative team, speech-language pathologists and teachers work together to complete assessments of speech and language and develop and implement programs to meet each student’s individual needs.

Gary E. Eddey, MD, Matheny vice president and chief medical officer, left, congratulates Dr. Balysky.

Andrew Balysky, OD, has received the Lawrence T. Taft Award, given to Matheny medical staff members who have demonstrated a long-term commitment to serving its patient population. Dr. Balysky, whose private practice is in Chester, NJ, is a consultant in optometry at Matheny.

The late Dr. Lawrence Taft was a member of the Matheny medical staff for 13 years. He helped establish the field of neurodevelopmental pediatrics and, as the first chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at RWJU Medical School, was a founder of the Institute for the Study of Child Development. He was a recipient of the University Excellence Award “for demonstrating a high level of achievement and recognition by his peers for patient care.”

Fred and Isabelle Frisco of Hillsborough with Matheny student Shane Szott.

Liz Geraghty, president of The Friends of Matheny, was describing her daughter Bozena’s experience at Matheny to a crowd of more than 100 people attending Oktoberfest, a casual evening of celebration by The Friends to benefit Matheny students and patients. The Friends of Matheny is an auxiliary group that has raised more than $3 million for Matheny since 1983.

Guests at the event, held at Vliettown Farm in Oldwick, NJ, enjoyed German food and music and made extra contributions to Matheny by buying raffle tickets, bidding in the silent auction and purchasing special Community Connections packages that help fund activities for Matheny’s students and patients in the community such as the camping, which Geraghty mentioned, attending concerts and plays, and dining out at area restaurants.

From left, Donna and NJ Devil Hall of Famer Scott Stevens of Bedminster; and Tom and Maria Carwithen of Madison.

Dr. Kenneth Robey.

The director of our Research Institute in Developmental Disabilities, Dr. Kenneth Robey, has been selected to an elite group of scholars in the Fulbright Specialists Roster, a national program, which places leaders from higher education and industry in global collaborations that strengthen the positions of U.S. institutions.

As a candidate, Dr. Robey is eligible to be considered for two-to-six-week grant opportunities through the Specialists program. For up to five years, he will remain a candidate until he is matched with a request from an overseas host institution.

The Matheny Research Institute has as its singular mission the research and dissemination of findings that might enhance the lives of those with severe disabilities, their families and the professionals who work with them. By conducting research and disseminating findings, the Institute strives to support and contribute to the knowledge base and repertoire of the field of disability treatment and habilitation.

Over the past couple of years, Dr. Robey has been working with a national consortium of health care faculty members who share his interest in the “disability identity” and in medical professionals’ attitudes that might impact on services or care provided to persons with disabilities. The consortium was formalized as the Alliance for Disability in Health Care Education.  Dr. Robey is a member of the board of directors and is a past president.

In addition to his role at Matheny, Dr. Robey is on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry – New Jersey Medical School and has taught undergraduate courses on an adjunct basis at Rutgers University, Centenary College and Montclair State University. He has a Ph.D. in social psychology from Rutgers University.

Chris King, vice president, operations, far left, congratulates some of the DSPs recognized on September 11 in New Brunswick. Front row, from left, Bridget Cottle, Brenda Hoagland, Zinash Melaku and Tinashe Maphosa; back row, from left, King, Andrea Singleton, Jana Ricketts, Weyatta Golafly, Simone Morgan and Nadine Thompson.

National Direct Support Professional Recognition Week was celebrated from September 9-15 to acknowledge the important work of DSPs, who provide quality life-enhancing supports and services to individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

In New Jersey, 13 Matheny personal care assistants received special recognition on September 11 at the New Jersey Law Center in New Brunswick for DSP professional training they have received from The College of Direct Support at the Elizabeth M. Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities. In addition, Matheny PCA trainer Brenda Hoagland was honored as New Jersey’s first credentialed DSP. About 60 of Matheny’s employees have either completed or are enrolled in The College of Direct Support, more than any other facility in the state.

Safy Diedhou, one of Matheny’s PCAs enrolled in the program, says DSP training prepared her to handle difficult situations. “Without DSP training,” she points out, “there were tools I was missing. I didn’t know how to deal with emotions. I wasn’t comfortable dealing with certain challenges. When a patient was difficult, I didn’t know what was appropriate to make them comfortable. Now, anything that comes my way, I’m ready for it.”