Monthly Archives: January 2018

The sensation James Stanley misses most is the squidgey feeling of wet sand between his toes. Sometimes it’s dangling his legs into cool water, and the feeling of soft grass under his feet.

“They’re very simple things, but when you haven’t felt them for seven years I just think it would be amazing to feel them again,” the 25-year-old said.

A rare surfing injury called surfer’s myelopathy paralysed Mr Stanley from the navel down when he was 19 years old. As he pushed up on his surfboard his spine hyper-extended, triggering a swelling and spinal cord blockage at his T10 vertebra.

This webinar will highlight a range of topics pertaining to adaptive automotive equipment for personal use and information for allied health care practitioners and other stakeholders in understanding and advocating for individuals seeking automotive vehicle modification solutions.

You might have come across her inspirational speech being shared online, in which she talked about how her husband jumped out of the car and saved himself while she survived with grave injuries in a horrific car accident.

The story she tells is compelling and moving, with over a 100 million viewers and counting as people all over the world responded to her inspiring message of overcoming the odds despite immense obstacles that life has dealt her.

Often referred to as Pakistan’s Iron Lady, Muniba Mazari’s amazing story about her journey back from massive spinal injuries that left her bedridden for two years is incredibly moving, so much so that she has found international acclaim as a TV host and United Nations goodwill ambassador.

When Brett Colonell took up sketching as a hobby years ago, he didn’t know yet how it would one day evolve into an integral part of his life. Even now, as he explores art as a fulltime profession, he still refers to himself as an artist in training, despite the significant audience his art has drawn on social media.

What many of his fans don’t know is that in 1997 Brett sustained a complete C4-C5 spinal fracture after a motocross accident, leaving him a quadriplegic with no movement from the neck down. After his spinal cord injury, he completed his rehabilitation at Craig Hospital.

For a brain-computer interface (BCI) to be truly useful for a person with tetraplegia, it should be ready whenever it’s needed, with minimal expert intervention, including the very first time it’s used. In a new study in the Journal of Neural Engineering, researchers in the BrainGate collaboration demonstrate new techniques that allowed three participants to achieve peak BCI performance within three minutes of engaging in an easy, one-step process.

One participant, “T5,” a 63-year-old man who had never used a BCI before, needed only 37 seconds of calibration time before he could control a computer cursor to reach targets on a screen, just by imagining using his hand to move a joystick.

People with limited mobility or paralysis could be able to use their hands again thanks to a robotic exoskeleton which can be controlled by brainwaves.

The lightweight and portable devices are being developed in the Geneva lab of Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) and can restore functional grasps for those with physical impairments.

It is hoped that refined versions of the kit will allow people to complete meaningful daily tasks.

Brian Keefer has always been an adrenaline junkie.

A 2008 gymnastics accident in which Keefer suffered a spinal cord injury that left him a quadriplegic could have stopped him, but it didn’t.

“Brian’s had some adventures since he’s had his injury,” his father said.

From scuba diving in the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, where “sharks swam right into my face,” to ziplining at Roundtop Mountain Resort in Lewisberry, Keefer has had his share.

Dr. Ona E. Bloom, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research , associate professor has uncovered that white blood cell genes are present at different levels in people with spinal cord injury.

These findings, published yesterday online in the “Journal of Neurotrauma,” are a first step to understanding and developing better interventions for infections in people with spinal cord injury, which is the leading cause of death in these individuals.

Deep beneath the surface of a crystal blue pool or a dark green ocean, differences tend to fade. As a former physical therapist at Craig Hospital of Englewood and longtime scuba diver, Scott Taylor knows this better than most.

“Water is the great equalizer,” he frequently says.

He and his wife, Lynn, own and operate A-1 Scuba and Travel Aquatics Center in Littleton, a business Lynn’s father opened more than 58 years ago.

The glove helps people with a spinal cord injury perform everyday tasks like holding a cup or brushing their teeth.

A spinal cord injury can have a lasting effect on the quality of the life you’re able to lead. Depending on the severity of damage, symptoms can include pain, numbness or even paralysis, rendering everyday tasks nearly impossible. But a new robotic glove called the NeoMano hopes to help people who suffer from spinal cord injuries regain use of their hand.