Did something catastrophic ever happen to you? Where your life changed in an instant? Did you wake up in a hospital bed, not knowing where you were, or how much time passed? It happened to me. I never thought I would be hit by a car at sixteen years old, while crossing the street on my way to school. Nor did I think once I survived the accident, it would live with me every day for the rest of my life.

I was flown to the University of Michigan hospital, where I underwent 12 hours of emergency surgery. My injuries were so severe, doctors predicted I might not make it through the night. The first several days were critical. My spine was dislocated, and broken at the L1-L2 level. I had a fracture in my C1 vertebrae. A broken left femur, a broken right tib fib, and a broken left tib fib. I was paralyzed. I’m lucky it wasn’t worse! And that wasn’t even all of my injuries. Continue Reading »

A group of US researchers has produced a robotic set of legs which they believe is the first to fully model walking in a biologically accurate manner.

A group of US researchers has produced a robotic set of legs which they believe is the first to fully model walking in a biologically accurate manner.

The neural architecture, musculoskeletal architecture and sensory feedback pathways in humans have been simplified and built into the robot, giving it a remarkably human-like walking gait that can be viewed in this video: Continue Reading »

Red Bull Racing drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber unveiled their Wings for Life cars today ahead of this weekend’s British Grand Prix. Both will drive their specially-branded RB8s, which each feature more than 25,000 photos that have been sent in by fans, throughout the race weekend.

Organised for Wings for Life, the charity that is striving to find a cure for spinal cord injury, the initiative was open to fans all over the world who wanted to race with Mark and Sebastian at this year’s Silverstone race and support an incredible cause. Continue Reading »

How many times have you read about walking for exercise? The articles tell us to just get out there and walk. It’ll improve you circulation, your heart and lungs will be healthier, you’ll lose pounds and every part of you will benefit.

But what happens if you can’t walk? What happens to your body when you stop exercising because you’ve lost the movement in your legs, arms or more because of a spinal cord injury (SCI)?

After hearing David Ditor, associate professor of the Department of Kinesiology (the study of human movement) at Brock University, talk about the benefits of exercise on a body that won’t voluntarily move, I decided to go to Brock and take a look at what’s going on. Continue Reading »