Clinic designs therapies helping children recover from spinal injuries
10 p.m. Thursday, May 4, 2006
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Loretta McRae is an outgoing 15 year old with a contagious smile. She loves to play soccer and swim in the ocean. But an accident on a trip to Australia changed every thing.
"We’d gone to the beach, me and my friend ran into the water and we dove, and the water was, it was at a height where I could have been okay, except there was a sandbar and I hit my head on it and my C-6 vertebra broke,” she said.
Loretta was paralyzed, but the injury didn't keep her off her feet.
Additional information
Each year, about 11,000 new spinal cord injuries occur and every year nearly 850 spinal cord injuries are caused by diving accidents in shallow water.
"Everything has gotten a lot stronger, so I really, there isn't any muscle that I can't move at all,” she said.
It’s a remarkable improvement thanks to hard work and "restoration" therapy at Baltimore’s Kennedy Krieger Institute.
"We now realize the damaged nervous system can self repair,” said John McDonald, Neurologist.
Dr. McDonald, who once treated Christopher Reeve, directs the clinic where he's pioneering therapies that focus on kids with paralysis.
"Unfortunately, most children don't have access to adequate rehabilitation, nor is there equipment made for those children,” he said.
The clinic's new exercise bike can be adapted for any age, from adults and kids in their teens to four-year-old toddlers.
"The nervous system is relearning this pattern which is important for walking,” McDonald said.
A spinal cord injury cuts off signals from the brain that tell the body to move. So, a small computer on the bike does the job. It sends electrical signals to nerves in Loretta's legs, prompting them to pedal.
"The ultimate goal is to simulate the pattern of movement, 6,000 revolutions of the leg which produces patterned activity up in the spinal cord, which we've now shown in animals, and now in humans, to improve recovery of function, as well as stimulate actual regeneration,” he continued.
The activity reminds the body how to move, but it takes work - no more hour-long therapy sessions once or twice a week.
"Individuals now come in for four hours a day, three-to-five days a week and now we're seeing the same extensive recovery in one-to-three months,” McDonald said. "It used to take three years to get major recovery of function."
Loretta has a few things in her corner, the new therapy and a nervous system that's still developing, and one more thing.
"She’s still progressing and she's going to walk,” said Debbie McRae, mother.
It’s a positive attitude that runs in the family.
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