Young man with Muscular Dystrophy who is fundraising for a ‘robotic’ arm gets to trial a taste of independence at Champions League match

25-year-old Adam Kent loves football and his lifelong dream is to raise his scarf at Anfield during the You’ll Never Walk Along anthem. Now, LFC and Midlands based company, Rahana Life have come together to give Adam the opportunity to trial the JACO assistive robotic arm, taking him one step closer to changing his life.

#myLFCarm. #AdamKent

As an avid LFC supporter, Adam dreams of lifting his football scarf at Anfield to cheer on his heroes. But what comes easily to most of us, using our arms, is a far-off dream for him. Adam is living with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a degenerative muscle wasting condition that affects his movement and severely limits his ability to move his arms. He has very limited mobility and needs his parents or sister to help him perform everyday tasks such as eating, drinking, bathing and opening doors.

Adam is in a race against time due to progressive heart failure and is urgently fundraising for a JACO robotic arm. The cutting edge JACO robotic arm, supplied by Rahana Life in the UK and built by Kinova Robotics in Canada, will enable Adam to become more independent, try new activities and build precious memories with his family. The arm can be integrated into Adam’s wheelchair, which will allow him to control the movements of the JACO’s shoulder, elbow, wrist and gripping fingers. In the future, he intends for his arm to be passed on to be used by other young people with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

Today, it looks like Adam’s going to have a taste of what’s to come, a slice of his dream - Midlands based healthtech company Rahana Life and LFC have been working together to give him the chance to trial the arm and wave the scarf at Anfield on match day. Rahana Life will integrate the arm into his wheelchair which will allow him to participate in raising his scarf. Adam explains how the arm will help, “It's always been a dream to hold the scarf over my head at a match. Actually, at the moment, when I'm at the ground, I'm not able to wave it on my own. I feel disconnected because it's someone else holding the scarf for me and not me. The JACO arm will let me have that dream.”

But Adam’s dream doesn’t stop there. “The trial of the arm will allow Adam to both achieve his Reds dream and also give him the taste of independence in the hope that the money will be raised to allow Adam to gain that independence full time and not just for one day”, explains Adam’s sister, Hannah Cagliarini. Adam desperately wants to live a fuller life and permanent access to the JACO will give him some of the independence he needs to do this.

Adam is trying to raise enough money to buy the “life-changing” robotic arm and amazingly, thanks to the goodwill, kindness and generosity of others he has already raised almost 40% of his £50,000 target. The LFC mantra of ‘You’ll never walk alone’ is still going strong. If you would like to help Adam, visit https://tinyurl.com/myLFCarm today (#myLFCarm, #AdamKent).

Adam shares a glimpse of his life now and what a difference the JACO will make. “On a typical day, I’d get up in the morning and I’d have my dinner and then I spend most of my day just sitting on my laptop browsing the internet. And then I’d have my tea and then go to bed” The JACO would allow Adam to carry out a range of daily tasks for himself, from picking things up to opening doors. Adam hopes to use it to learn photography, play with his dogs, independently open doors, get himself something to eat or drink and maybe even do a bit of gardening!

“What an amazing piece of equipment!” Adam said when he first tried the JACO earlier this year in June. “It made me a bit speechless, to be able to just pick that (drink) up and put it to my mouth. It might seem to others that that’s nothing really, but to me, it is. If I want to have a drink, I've got to shout someone and ask them to get me it. Sometimes I have to wait because they are either busy or doing something, so that’s quite a challenge for me. That often affects me mentally because I feel that I’ve got to stop what someone else is doing to get something else that I need - and that often makes me feel like a burden. The JACO will enable me to do so many things!”

Creating memories through photographs is another of Adam’s ambitions. “I’ve always wanted to get into photography, so the JACO would enable me to do it. At the moment, I don’t have any hobbies. Doing photography would give me something real to focus on and achieve.” Other JACO users have successfully taken up photography and even made a career from it.

Adam would also love to play with his dogs. “I have two dogs who bark when they want to go out in the garden. Sometimes they come to me and I say, “I can’t help you, I can’t open the door for you”, so I can possibly open the door for them and let them out”, he explained. The possibilities that the JACO robotic arm would open up to Adam are endless.

Adam’s twin sister, Hannah Cagliarni watched Adam trying the JACO during his trial in June and was overwhelmed with how life-changing it would be for him. Hannah said, “It’s such an emotional experience. I see his struggles every single day. What 25 year old man wants his sister to constantly have to sit there giving him a drink or feeding him? The joy that this brings him and the happiness that I can see in his eyes when he uses it; it’s a memory that I’m never going to get out of my head”.