Rehab centers adopt motion-based treatments for spinal-cord patients

Locomotor therapies re-create and repeat the pattern of walking to train the spinal cord in functions formerly controlled by the brain.

It's a declaration and a question, the first words on the lips of the newly injured after a spinal-cord accident.

"I will walk again."

"Will I walk again?"

Whether that person will is the gap between hope and proof that has long defined research into recovering from spinal-cord injuries. An emerging treatment known as locomotor is narrowing that gap.

The world of rehabilitation is turning quickly toward locomotor therapies, re-creating and repeating the pattern of walking to train the spinal cord in functions formerly controlled from the brain.

For decades, scientists believed the spinal cord was merely a conduit, or highway, of messages running from the brain to organs, limbs and extremities. Animal research began to show that even some with completely severed spinal cords could be retrained for walking motions.

Many researchers now believe the spinal cord has "central pattern generators" that can initiate movement on their own, not just pass on messages from elsewhere.

The patients and therapists' job, then, is to program those processors with repeated walking patterns using locomotor training: first by weight-supported steps on a treadmill with trainers touching and moving each joint; then by weight-supported, over-ground walking; then "community ambulation" using a combination of walkers, crutches, canes or robotic aids such as exoskeletons.

Seven national centers, including Craig Hospital in Englewood, are part of an approved NeuroRecovery Network offering the walking therapy in set protocols. More than 600 patients have trained in the system, and each center is teaching more therapists how to spread the concepts into more hospitals and rehab centers.

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Rehab centers adopt motion-based treatments for spinal-cord patients