Mercy Medical helps Cedar Falls teen drive with hand controls

CEDAR FALLS — As with most teenagers, Noah Beisner is looking forward to passing his driver's test and all the freedom it entails — meeting friends for a movie or packing up after band practice and heading home for dinner.

But for the 17-year-old Cedar Falls resident, the road to independence has been a long one.

That's because Beisner has cerebral palsy — a physical disability that impacts his movements and posture. Cerebral palsy affects his muscle control, coordination and balance.

He gets around with the help of a reverse walker or two canes.

'We didn't know he couldn't use the foot controls until we tried' during a driving lesson, said his mother, Marit Beisner. 'We found out pretty quickly that he needed adaptive equipment.'

That's where Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids occupational therapist Christina Beck enters. Beck, a certified driver rehabilitation specialist, helps people of all ages with disabilities — ranging from a missing limb to vision troubles — drive through the help of adaptive controls, including hand controls and knobs that make it easier to use turn signals or windshield wipers.

Beck is quick to point out that she's not a driver's education teacher and is not affiliated with the Iowa Department of Transportation. Instead, she's on hand to look at an individual's needs and come up with a plan to use adaptive equipment effectively.

The hospital has offered a driving program for about a decade, but Beck said it was mostly a clinic-based program. It wasn't until a few years ago that the hospital tailored and built it into what it is today — a comprehensive program that evaluates drivers needs, works with them to properly use the equipment and helps adapt their vehicles.

She worked with Beisner over a period of two years to prepare him for his upcoming driving test.

Beck did an initial evaluation, which measured Beisner's perception, visual tracking, reflexes and other skills needed to drive. He sat behind the wheel once before she had him go home to work on becoming more familiar with the rules of the road.

Over the next year, Beisner said he sat in the front seat more often to watch his parents of twin brother, Luke, drive, asked questions and had family members quiz him. He went back to see Beck this summer, when the two trained for about 30 hours.

'It was a big time commitment,' Marit Beisner said. 'His whole life, we've had to research and find the people who can help him be as independent as possible. We've found so many great people along the way.'

Beck said she doesn't typically work with patients that intensively, but Beisner's physical and vision issues, paired with the fact that he's a brand-new driver, meant he needed more time than most.

The two worked on Beisner's perception issues, muscle control and timing. They drove in parking lots for quite some time before moving to local roads.

'She'd tell me what to do or give me detailed instructions,' Beisner said. 'Eventually she backed off ...

and she was telling me to do things less and less, and more and more went onto me.'

Beisner accepts that even after he finally obtains his driver's license, he'll face some limitations — for example, he may not be able to drive at night or on the interstate.

But he's looking forward to becoming a more independent adult.

Beisner and his brother, Luke, are both seniors at Cedar Falls High School and will be graduating in 2016. They plan to attend Wartburg College in the fall of 2016, where Noah wants to study business and marketing, and Luke will study engineering.

'My motivation has always been that I want the same freedom Luke and my other friends have,' he said. 'I want that same independence and equality as my peers.'