Courtesy of TheAlternativePress.com

by Cara Townsend
Sunday, January 16 2011

MILLBURN, NJ – Ali Stroker, who may be the first actress in a wheelchair to have a leading role in a professional musical, will play the role of Olive in the Tony-award winning show, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, at Paper Mill Playhouse from January 19th through February 13th.

A graduate of Paper Mill Playhouse’s Summer Musical Theatre Conservatory, Stroker says that she is “thrilled” to return to the Garden State after  spending time on the West coast. In addition to pursuing professional goals in the Los Angeles area, Stroker says she learned how to surf. Yes, surf.

Though paralyzed from the chest down at the age of two, Stroker never let her disability stop her from performing. “I have tried since I was very young to make this work—to perform in a wheelchair—and I look for any chance I get to make that happen,” she said.

Stroker’s life experiences allow her to connect to her character, Olive, in her role at Paper Mill. “Olive is a 12-year-old girl who is having trouble in her life and uses words and language as her escape. She is full of imagination and love to get lost in stories and books. She is different.”

At times Stroker says she grew up feeling out of place. “The greatest gift for me was finding my passion. I did not have to worry as much about fitting in. And I could be more than just ‘a girl in a wheelchair’—I could be a performer and develop my talent,” she said.

At age 6, Stroker performed “Annie” with family and friends in her backyard in Ridgewood, New Jersey. “ I watched the movie over and over to learn it. And that’s where the passion with performing started,” she said.

Stroker took voice lessons and performed in musicals at school and in town. At age 11 she was cast in a professional kids singing group in New York City called the Kids for Kids Project. The group performed musical reviews and raised money and awareness for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. She says that working with other professional kids made her realize she wanted to pursue performance as a career.

In the fall of 2005, Stroker moved to New York City to attend the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. She has had roles on Sesame Street and in myriad of theatre performances, including Into the Woods, Pippin, Peter Pan, The Boys from Syracuseand Les Misérables.

An eternal optimist, Stroker believes that finding ways to perform in a wheelchair has allowed her to be an original performer. “I don’t look at obstacles as limitations,” she said. “Rather I see them as opportunities and possibilities.”

Furthermore, she sees The Arts as a great outlet for people with illness or disabilities. “The Arts allows expression and encourages you to do things your own way. It is life-changing,” she says.

Stroker has long-been a champion for the Christopher Reeve Foundation and says that she loves helping people. “I have been given so much. I am so blessed to have many people supporting me and I just want to give back. Performance is one way I can do that—for two hours I can take people on a journey. It’s a wonderful experience,” she says.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling promises a fun, quirky experience for theater-goers. “We are thrilled to welcome a superb cast to Paper Mill Playhouse,” said Producing Artistic Director Mark S. Hoebee. “This clever, heartwarming musical demonstrates that it can be cool to be smart. This production is sure to entertain people of all ages with hilarious antics and a magnificent score.”

Tickets for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling may be purchased by calling 973-376-4343, or by visiting the Paper Mill Box Office on Brookside Drive in Millburn, or online at Paper Mill Playhouse’s website: www.papermill.org.

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Argo Medical Technologies Ltd. Develops, manufactures and markets walk restoration devices for people with lower limb disabilities. The company’s ReWalk™ line of products offers an ambulation and rehabilitation alternative to wheelchair users, enabling people with severe walking impairments to stand, walk and even climb stairs.

Founded in 2001 and situated in Northern Israel, Argo operated, until end of 2007, under the auspices of TechnionSeed (formerly the Technion Incubator).

Argo is operated by a team of experts in the fields of rehab devices, control and computer sciences  with decades of combined experience in R&D, engineering and manufacturing of multidisciplinary systems. Argo’s worldwide marketing, sales and business development activities are supported by  specialists with extensive experience in these areas. The company is assisted by an Advisory Board of renowned international experts in the fields of medicine, biomedical engineering, robotics and marketing.

ReWalk™ is a new realization of the powered exoskeleton concept and provides user-initiated mobility; it consists of a light wearable brace support suit, which integrates actuation motors at the joints, an array of motion sensors, a computer system based on sophisticated control and safety algorithms and tailored rechargeable batteries. It  enables people with lower limb disabilities such as Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) and Spina Bifida to carry out routine ambulatory functions. ReWalk™ restores a person’s mobility functions, thus improving both quality of life and physical health. It promises to dramatically reduce the need for physical therapy and re-hospitalization that occur due to immobility-related complications in individuals with severe walking impairments.

ReWalk™ is a man-machine device where the user is actively involved and has control of all mobility functions, through unique control processes. Walking is controlled through subtle changes in center of gravity, stability and safety are secured by use of crutches.
Participation in mobility control comes naturally and intuitively, and brings tangible health and emotional benefits. ReWalk™ is not just a vertical wheelchair – ReWalk™ restores the element of control over mobility so lacking for wheelchair users.
As any wheelchair user can attest, life in a wheelchair carries a hefty healthcare price tag. Serious problems with the urinary, respiratory, cardiovascular and digestive systems are common, as well as osteoporosis, pressure sores and other afflictions.
By maintaining users upright on a daily basis, and exercising even paralyzed limbs in the course of movement, ReWalk™ alleviates many of the health-related problems associated with long-term wheelchair use. In addition to relieving suffering, this has a real impact on healthcare costs – cutting, and enabling both insurers and individuals to redirect funds to other avenues.
Adoption of ReWalk™ by wheelchair users results in significant cost saving at both institutions and private homes. ReWalk™ makes standing devices, stair lifts, bed lifts, and other mobility assistance apparatus redundant. Similarly, ReWalk™ users don’t require expensive powered wheelchairs – or the oversize vehicles and devices required to handle them. With ReWalk™, users require only minimal additional mobility assistance – dramatically increasing independence together with cost saving on a yearly basis.

Functionality:

* All day usage
* Mobility – walking, sitting-to-standing, standing-to-sitting, ascending/descending stairs and slopes
* Training – replacing other training equipment at home and at rehabilitation center

Prerequisites:

* Ability to use hands and shoulders (walking with crutches)
* Healthy cardiovascular system and bone density

ReWalk™-I: ReWalk™ for institutional use

ReWalk™-I is a device that allows institutions to use it as a multi-user rehabilitation and training solution.
At institutions, ReWalk™-I can serve as a therapeutic and physical training device, used for intensive locomotion therapy. By replacing or supplementing expensive mechanized gait trainers, ReWalk™-I may enable institutions to redirect significant budget resources for other therapeutic activities.
The ReWalk™-I is supplied in two sizes to accommodate users height from about 1.60m to 1.90m. The smaller size accommodates users from about 1.60m to 1.75m and bigger size completes the range up to about 1.90m. The device supports body weight up to 100Kg.
ReWalk™-I is currently available for rehabilitation centers / hospitals in Europe and in the USA.

ReWalk™-P: ReWalk™ for personal use

ReWalk™-P has a sportive look and is intended for a daily use by qualified paraplegics, i.e. after medical examination and successful completion of a training program in a rehabilitation center.

As a personal device, the ReWalk™-P can be used indoors and outdoors in almost any urban scenario. The device is not intended for sports or aggressive use.

The ReWalk™-P will be available in the end of 2011.

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Courtesy of The Oakland Press

By CHRIS HAGAN

John Chatman, 56, stands with Dr. Timothy Sesi and PTA Lela Biebuyck, using the Wii as part of his rehabilitation after he suffered a stroke.

It’s being called “Wii-hab” and “Wii-habilitation” in the medical community, and several local hospitals have established a use for video games in rehabilitation treatments.

The Nintendo Wii is now a staple and one of the most popular pieces of equipment in the rehabilitation centers at Crittenton, Beaumont Hospitals and St. Joseph Mercy Oakland.

“It’s been a true revolution in rehab,” said Dr. Timothy Sesi, director of rehabilitation at St. Joe. “The minute we introduced (the patients) to it, the patient satisfaction had gone through the roof.”

What sets the Wii apart from every other gaming system — with the exception of Xbox’s new Kinect — is its ability to wirelessly detect movement in three dimensions through the use of a controller. Inside the controller are accelerometers and infrared detection that read speed and position. It’s this technology that made the Wii possible for rehab.

“We use the Wii to reorient the patients with their body,” Sesi said. “The features of the Wii Fit enable us to monitor the patients progress with balance.”

The Wii has been able to aid people who’ve had strokes or are recovering from major surgery as well as patients living with multiple sclerosis. Golf is just one of the many sports available on the Wii, and Sesi said it’s one of the best.

“It’s low impact. It forces the patient to monitor balance, arm flexion and then rotation when they hit the ball,” he said.

John Chatman is a patient at St. Joseph’s who had a stroke. The 56-year-old retired General Motors Corp. electrical engineer is no stranger to electronics and its capabilities, but he was surprised how much the Wii was able to do.

“I just didn’t think it was going to do much of anything, but I was impressed with the proficiency of the device,” Chatman said. “By using this, you have more hand-eye coordination.”

Beaumont, which incorporated the Wii to its program in 2007, introduced another video game a year later for its younger patients, Guitar Hero.

Karen Roffe, a recreational therapist at Beaumont Royal Oak, saw the benefits of the Wii and began looking into the hand-eye coordination of Guitar Hero. She believes in the device’s benefits, but knows it’s not the end-all.

“We use it as a reward system. It’s an incentive to finish the other required exercises first,” she said. “It’s not so much about points, it’s about mastering skills.”

Both facilities are now looking into the Xbox Kinect — which doesn’t use a remote, and instead reads body position — but the next step is developing driving skills in patients who are still capable of handling a vehicle. Mario and the rest of the characters in Mario Kart will be the teachers.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I think I’d be prescribing video games to patients,” Sesi said.

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Courtesy of WKYC-TV in Cleveland, OH.

January 12, 2011

CLEVELAND — Dick Clark is perhaps one of the most well known faces of stroke survival. Chances are you know someone and you probably think strokes only affect older people but they can happen at any age and about 200,00 happen to people under 65 each year.

It’s the leading cause of debilitating illness in this country but imagine being told as a teenager you’ll spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair.

Eighteen-year-old Ariadne Popma, of Michigan, was determined not to let that happen. A stroke paralyzed her left side two years ago, most likely caused by a blood disorder she has called beta thalassemia.

Electro-stimulation therapy to shock her muscles into working again didn’t work. She couldn’t feel her leg, let alone think about standing on it, until she came to Cleveland and met Dr. Jeffrey Bolek in the Cleveland Clinic’s Motor Control Program.

In three weeks, his therapy not only helped her stand, it helped her walk again. Unlike traditional therapies that electrically stimulate individual muscles, Dr. Bolek’s program forces Ariadne’s brain to tell her body what to do.

“If you can give success in one or two muscles, a lot of the other things fall into place,” Dr. Bolek says.

He also adds his method works faster which may be economical to the patient paying for healthcare. However, the therapy may not work for everyone.
It works as Ariadne walks on the treadmill and watches a monitor in front of her. Two moving lines let her know if she’s hitting her target.

But what keeps her going is the fact that her walking is powering a DVD player that shows a movie. It plays as long as she walks correctly. “This one actually gives me feedback to use what I need so I can use my muscles accordingly to my brain,” Ariadne says.

The therapy isn’t for everyone but it also helped Ariadne regain control of her left arm. Enough that she can now shuffle cards.

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Courtesy of the Armenian Spectator

December 18, 2010

VIENNA, Austria – Pioneering results of researchers at the Vienna University of Technology shall improve mobility in spinal cord injured persons without surgical intervention.

Severe spinal cord injury is a devastating neurological condition and often results in confined and dependent lives of the persons concerned.  The ultimate goal must be prevention, immediate cure or regeneration.  However, until these solutions are found, scientists continue to seek methods to enhance quality of life of those so afflicted.  A team of young scientists in Austria, working in an interdisciplinary field of human neurosciences, medicine and engineering, is committed to spinal cord research and the development of novel therapeutic interventions and has achieved pioneering results.  Ursula Hofstoetter and Karen Minassian, who are with the Institute for Analysis and Scientific Computing at the Vienna University of Technology and the Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Medical University of Vienna, Austria, described a novel method to electrically stimulate the spinal cord with surface electrodes placed over the skin of the lower back and abdomen.

Spinal cord injury interrupts descending neural pathways originating from the brain.  The terminal spinal cord, that issues the nerves to the lower limb muscles, is then (partially) separated from brain control.  Depending on the severity of injury, one of many consequences is the impairment or loss of voluntary control of muscles below the injury, including the ability to walk.

For some time, the spinal cord was regarded as a bundle of nerves transmitting signals between brain and body.  But the spinal cord – like the brain – can process and generate neural signals.  Specialized neural circuits in the spinal cord can autonomously produce commands for controlling simple behavior, like the rhythmic contractions of muscles.  Such circuits, called pattern generators, are preserved in the lower spinal cord after injury and are the basis of the studies of Hofstoetter and Minassian.

The group has earlier demonstrated that electrical stimulation of the lower spinal cord with simple signals can produce rhythmic, cyclical movements in paralyzed lower limbs.  This was achieved using electrodes that had been implanted inside the spine, close to the spinal cord, for the therapeutic treatment of involuntary muscle contractions (spasms).

The novel method of so-called “transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation” utilizes commercially available, self-adhesive electrodes as used in physical therapy.  The simple and cost-effective method does not depend on surgery and could be widely applied in rehabilitation medicine.  First results in the attempt to improve mobility in spinal cord injured people with transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation are promising.  Spasms can be reduced and muscle activities can be increased in individuals with complete spinal cord injuries who have some remaining ability to walk.  People with severe injuries who do not respond to contemporary gait rehabilitation therapies could benefit from transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation when combined with the treatment concept of “motor learning” – this is the repetitive practice of stepping on a treadmill supported by therapists or a robot.

The next essential step is the transfer of the scientific results to clinical research and – ultimately – to clinical practice.  Whether this goal can be achieved in near future also depends on the financial support of following projects.

The Austrian group collaborates with international sciences and clinical partners in Europe, Asia and the U.S. Among them is the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, GA, one of the top rehabilitation centers in the United States, specialized in medical treatment, research and rehabilitation for people with spinal cord or brain injury.  Hofstoetter and Minassian are currently supported by a Translational Brainpower Project of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under the mentorship of Prof. Milan R Dimitrijevic, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas neurologist and human neuroscientist, and one of the founders of Restorative Neurology.

In their interdisciplinary work, Hofstoetter and Minassian are strongly supported by Prof. Frank Rattay, head of the Association for Biomedical Engineering at the Vienna University of Technology, Prof. Heinrich Binder, head of the Neurological Center at the Sozialmedizinisches Zentrum Baumgartner Hoehe, Otto-Wagner-Spital and Prof. Winfried Mayr, Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Medical University of Vienna.  One of the first supporters of the team was the Red Bull-backed Wings for Life Foundation for Spinal Cord Research, Salzburg.

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