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In rehabilitation clinics like the Roosevelt Institute, PPMA patients are learning how to cope with their recurring symptoms. Many are able to continue most of their ordinary activities with the help of lightweight braces and portable respirators. Institute doctors also recommend that they simply rest more, which enables them to conserve the energy to carry on. This prescription is alien to most of the patients. "Polio survivors are very strong people," says Frederick Maynard, director of the post-polio clinic at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor. "It goes against their whole approach to life to suddenly take the easy way out." But once they do, he says, "they often feel much better."