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Loading ...Surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have restored some hand function in a quadriplegic patient with a spinal cord injury at the C7 vertebra, the lowest bone in the neck. Continue Reading »
More good news on 18-year-old paralyzed racer Michael Johnson from Mt. Morris: He keeps winning races and is being featured in the newest issue of Racer Magazine, the premier North American motor sports publication.
The Free Press introduced readers to Johnson a couple of years ago, when he was racing go-karts with hand controls and preparing for experimental stem cell surgery as a result of a motorcycle racing accident in Sarnia, Ontario, in 2005. He fractured his T5 and T6 vertebrae in the accident and was left without movement from the waist down. Continue Reading »
MORNINGTON’S Irwin Vale was told by doctors he would live the rest of his life as a quadriplegic, unable to move his body as a result of a scooter accident three years ago.
But he has proved them wrong. Thanks to his parents’ support, hard work and an alternative exercise therapy, Mr Vale is walking, with the assistance of crutches, and wants to help others do the same.
Mr Vale has held a commercial pilot’s licence since age 16 and, at age 19 moved to Fiji to work as an instructor. Continue Reading »
THREE years ago, Connor Docherty was paralysed from the neck down after a horrendous rugby injury … now he’s going to walk the West Highland Way.
The teenager had broken his neck and badly injured his spinal cord in a tackle and was warned he might never be able to move again.
But now the 19-year-old is to attempt the gruelling 96-mile route to raise cash for the Murrayfield Centenary Fund, which helps rugby players whose lives have been devastated by spinal injuries. Continue Reading »
(KTHV) — A few years ago, if someone was diagnosed with a paralyzing spinal cord injury, the idea of that patient ever walking again would be out of the question. Continue Reading »
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 »
If Michael Jones did it, he knew he’d be spent for the day. He’s a quadriplegic with some sensation and bits of movement. But that morning as his nearly 3-year-old daughter, Liliana, climbed on him in the hospital bed he sleeps in at home, Michael just wanted to be a dad.
So he lifted his arm at the elbow, holding it somewhere between a 45- and 90-degree angle. Liliana threw her weight against his arm, and he pushed her back onto the bed, the way dads horse around with their wide-eyed, apple-cheeked toddlers. Continue Reading »
It was a warm, rainy night, and Mike Belawetz and Jennifer Darmon went for a stroll in a flower garden along the Windsor riverfront in Canada, looking at the Detroit skyline. He walked by her side, hiding a diamond engagement ring.
She propelled herself in a wheelchair.
Belawetz went down on a knee and took out a box with the ring. A man of few words, he didn’t say anything.
“I opened it up and I expected her to figure out what was going on,” he said, smiling. “I didn’t think I had to say anything else, but she squeezed it out of me. She made me ask. So I said, ‘Jenn, will you marry me?’ ” Continue Reading »
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 »
A new algorithm based on age and sensory and motor scores in four body areas may allow clinicians to predict with great accuracy which patients will be able to walk independently 1 year after spinal cord injury. Continue Reading »