Beyond The Chair

Beyond The Chair exists to provide an improved quality of life for individuals with spinal cord injuries and other neurological disabilities through intensive exercise programs to enhance overall functional capacity.

Zander Lee – Custom Physical Therapy Tables

These tables were designed for injured people to stretch, roll and attain general well-being.

Many uses: physical therapy, massage, yoga, pilates, exercise, stretching and more…

These custom tables are beautifully hand-crafted and as a result become the focal point of any room.

There are endless design-choices available, including: height, width and length of table; species and finish of wood; density and color of foam top; and storage configuration. All of our tables come with wheels for easy movement. Continue Reading »

Aquatic therapy

Ancient Egyptians knew it, Greek philosopher and writer Hippocrates was talking about it over 2,400 years ago and physicians of the Roman Empire recommended it. The amazing effect of water therapy, or aquatic therapy, is working to improve the lives of children with a wide range of disabilities. The only side effect appears to be smiles. Continue Reading »

New bionic legs help paraplegics walk again

The robotic exoskeleton eLegs could be a game changer for spinal cord injury rehabilitation

Stephanie Sablan was driving home from her grandmother’s house late at night last January, down the scenic Route 101 in Northern California. Sablan picked up her phone and typed a text message to her boyfriend to say she’d be there in half an hour. Before she hit send, she looked up and was surprised by a curve in the road. She swung the steering wheel to avoid the central reservation, but went too far, and the car flipped over – once, twice, three times, four times.

As the car tumbled, Sablan was thrown out of the passenger-side window – “I wasn’t wearing my seat belt,” she says – and landed in the grass beside the highway. “I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move my legs.” Continue Reading »

Injured ATV racer battles his way back from paralyzing injury

On Feb. 19, ATV Pro Am racer Cody Wills of Lower Paxton Twp. crashed while competing in a qualifying race during Motorama 2011 at the Pennsylvania Farm Show. In flipping his four-wheeler and landing squarely on his head, the 20-year-old crushed the C-6 vertebra in his neck, partially severing his spinal cord. Neurosurgeons at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center employed cutting-edge techniques, including plunging Cody’s body into hypothermia for three days in order to limit the swelling of his spinal tissue and prevent further neurological impairment. Cody emerged from the surgery with the use of his hands, but only faint feeling and virtually no control below his chest. It could be a year or longer before the extent and permanency of his injuries are known. Continue Reading »

Weightlifting helps spinal-cord-injured man rebuild body, confidence

John Lee likes to brag about Paul Jones, one of his clients at the gym he operates in back of his home in East Memphis.

“Paul is the strongest bench presser I have,” Lee says of the 27-year-old former college student who routinely hoists and pumps 70-pound dumbbells, one in each hand, during their regular workouts.

Lots of young men can lift weights, but few are like Jones, who has been paralyzed below the chest and able to move only his arms since October 2008. Continue Reading »

Chance to walk again

RHIANNON Tracey was told she would never walk again after breaking her neck and three vertebrae on a horror Bali trip.

But 18 months after inadvertently diving headfirst into a hotel pool, the quadriplegic has taken her first steps again.

Her incredible progress, however, has come at a massive cost for her Eltham family, who have spent more than $300,000 on physical therapy and specialised help from two trips to an American spinal rehabilitation centre.

Rhiannon’s family is now pleading for corporate support and government backing as they join about 30 other Victorian families to open a franchise of the US centre, Project Walk. Continue Reading »

Paralyzed Windsor bride-to-be determined to walk down the aisle

WINDSRO, Ont. — Jennifer Darmon rests her hands on her fiancé’s shoulders, looks into his eyes and takes a step.

Jack Johnson’s Better Together is playing in the background. “It’s not always easy,” the song goes, and Jennifer’s foot lands squarely on her fiancé’s.

The dance is clumsy at first, but it gets better. The song says that, too.

With no sensation from her hips down, it’s amazing that Jennifer is on her feet at all. That she will walk down the aisle April 16 and share a first dance with her bridegroom is miraculous.

Jennifer, 28, suffered a catastrophic spinal injury in a 2008 car crash. A vertebra broken and the nerves to her spinal cord shredded, she was told by a surgeon in London that she would never walk again. Continue Reading »

A positive outlook: Special therapy helps man with spinal injury reclaim productive life

Practically from the time he could walk, Darren Templeton of Kinnelon enjoyed playing sports: football, basketball, baseball, soccer. As a student in Kinnelon High School, he was a member of the hockey and tennis teams, and he was an avid skier.

While vacationing with his family near Manahawkin in July 2004 … a month after graduating from high school … he dove from his family’s boat. The tide was rapidly changing, and water that Templeton thought was deep proved to be too shallow. He broke his neck, leaving him a quadriplegic.

Some people might be excused for succumbing to despair or depression. But Templeton’s main emotion was frustration. Following the accident, he went through weeks of physical therapy that was beneficial but unsatisfying. Continue Reading »

Frazier Rehab gets grant for spinal-cord patients

The Frazier Rehab Institute in Louisville has received a $64,000 grant from the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation to expand its fitness and wellness services for people with spinal cord injuries.

According to a news release, the grant will let Frazier open a second gym for Community Fitness & Wellness on its ninth floor at 220 Abraham Flexner Way, more than doubling its capacity to serve up to 60 new members. Continue Reading »