Does Locomotor training work?
According to this article, Locomotor Training helps the spinal cord reroute pathways by suspending by harness a paralyzed person over a treadmill and moving their legs.
From the article:
“The late Christopher Reeve, paralyzed in a 1995 riding accident, made headlines five years ago when he announced that he had regained some sensation and motion throughout his body, thanks to a regimen that included being suspended by harness over a treadmill while therapists moved his legs through a walking gait. The therapy, known as locomotor training, was said to take advantage of the fact that the spinal cord is hardwired with a sort of backup program for walking, one that can take over when signals from the brain quit.
But there were doubters. Reeve was just one person–and a wealthy one too, who could afford the best care. In the 2 1/2 years since his death, however, locomotor training has gone mainstream, with at least 17 hospitals and rehab centers in the U.S. and a handful in Canada and Europe offering it. So far, the patients who have undergone the therapy number only in the hundreds, but about a third of them have been 21 or younger, a fact that is not only helping doctors spare the very patients in whom loss of mobility hits the hardest but also revealing much about how the nervous system works.”
What do you think of this novel therapy?
paralysis, therapy, Locomotor training, Christopher Reeve
paralysis, therapy, Locomotor training, Christopher Reeve
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