Northern Michigan's News LeaderHealthy Living: Bionic Breakthroughs

Healthy Living: Bionic Breakthroughs

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250,000 Americans are living with a spinal cord injury. 53 percent have lost the use of their legs. The rest, have lost the use of their arms and legs. Now bionic breakthroughs are changing the game for these people-helping them to move around like never before. Robyn Haines has the details in Healthy Living.

 

Robotic legs are allowing those who never thought they would walk again-to take another step. Although it seems like Sci-Fi, it's now reality for Jean Altomari. A Cancun dream vacation turned into a nightmare when a jeep accident left her paralyzed from the waist down.  Before this motorized exoskeleton-called "REWALK"--Jean had not taken a step in two years. Patients wear a backpack with a small computer... and use a remote control on a wrist device to tell the suit to stand up. The result has Jean moving on her own.

 

But for some of the 118-thousand people in the U.S. who can't use their arms or legs... even moving their wheelchair can be an insurmountable task. A diving accident left Jason Disanto paralyzed from the shoulders down. Now he's one of the first to test drive new technology that could change his world. It's called tongue drive-an operating system that works through a tiny magnet...piercing the tongue. By touching different teeth the user sends commands through the headset to be processed by a smart phone.

 

The "REWALK" is FDA-approved for use in rehabilitation centers-and is expected to be ready for consumers in 2012. And a clinical trail is now underway for patients to test out tongue drive in their homes.

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