TW Sparks

Tufts Journal, Vol 13, Number 2,October 1991
In This Corner - by Robert Levy

This toy for tots makes good therapy
     A floppy tube of golden cloth looking like a short, thick sock. Turn it inside out, and it becomes purple. Invert it again and it’s black as an ant.
     The idea is simplicity itself, but to a young child, it’s a cuddly marvel - a cloth chameleon of changing colors.
     To a patient with Alzheimer’s disease or a child with a learning disability, however, it can be a form of therapy.
     When Dr. Thomas B. Waggener invented this toy as a first-birthday present for his daughter, Allison, he was seeking nothing more than a way to keep her occupied during a long plane flight. A year ago, though, a conversation took place that put a whole new…er…color on his invention.
     “I was serving on jury duty and mentioned the toy to one of my fellow jurors, who happened to be a physical therapist,” says Waggener, assistant professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine. “She thought it could be useful for some patients in physical and occupational therapy.”
     Her intuition proved to be right on target. Today Magic Muffes® (the name Waggener gave his patented invention) are sold more frequently as therapeutic aids than toys.
     Dr. Karen Conrad, president of Therapro, a Framingham, Mass.-based therapy resource center that distributes Magic Muffes®, says the toy “is very simple, but it helps children with developmental problems improve their physical coordination.”
     “Often their hand muscles are weak,” she says. “Magic Muffes® not

only help them strengthen their hands, but the motion they use with the toy - keeping their thumb stiff while flexing their fingers - is similar to that used in writing.” In addition, the repeating sequence of colored panels helps develop memory skills. Not only that, Conrad says, but Magic Muffes® are soft (it doesn’t hurt if one happens to be thrown at you), colorful, washable and appeal to children’s tactile sense.
     They could hardly be more appropriate if they’d been designed for therapeutic use to begin with.
     Another use for Magic Muffes® involves people with Alzheimer’s disease. Some Alzheimer’s patients tend to rub or finger their clothing for long periods of time. Magic Muffes® can help channel that repetitive motion in a more appropriate direction, Conrad says.
     Waggener had the most modest of ambitions when he sewed the first Magic Muffe® in the early hours of the morning nine years ago. “I was trying to come up with something that my daughter could carry on the plane and would hold her attention - something that wouldn’t have just one shape or color, but would change.”
     From that first prototype, Magic Muffes® have undergone a considerable evolution. Today, half a dozen models are available - usually created at a therapists request - using different materials and different numbers of panels. One version uses black and white panels for very young children who cannot yet distinguish color.
     There’s even an all-cotton calico version for people with natural-fiber sensibilities.
     Magic Muffes® can be purchased at Saturday’s Child and Henry Bear’s Park in Cambridge.

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