Ever heard of the suit that helps Retrain the Brain After Stroke? Well, it's not the usual English or French suit or whatever. It's called a Bionic Suit! It helps to retrain the brain after a stroke.
William “Bo” James is a fighter in every sense of the word: He's a former firefighter, an Iraq veteran, and a onetime middleweight boxing champion. In 1996, he went 11 rounds against the World Champion Bernard Hopkin in “the happiest day of my life,” James says.
Today, he's in another kind of fight. He's relearning how to walk after a stroke. “It’s not that much different,” he says. “In rehab, you’re working hard.”
But James has an ally in this fight: a high-tech bionic suit called an exo-skeleton. Exo-skeletons were first developed for military use to enable infantry to carry heavy loads. They were later adapted to give paralyzed people a chance to stand and walk. Now, researchers at the Kessler Foundation are testing to see whether the exo-skeleton can make rehab after a stroke more effective.
The muscles are not damaged in a stroke — the brain is. So rehab is really a matter of retraining the brain. Karen Nolan, PhD, a researcher at the Kessler Foundation, says the sooner rehab begins, the more function can be regained because the brain hasn’t had time to learn bad habits.
Dr. Nolan says after an injury — even a stubbed toe — that the brain will begin compensating for the injured side by limping. “It doesn’t mean you’ve recovered,” she says. “It means you’ve figured out a really good way to walk in your new pattern.”
The longer you walk in that new pattern, the harder it is to get back to a good, symmetrical gait, which is where the exo-skeleton comes in.
The exo-skeleton doesn’t walk for you, but it keeps your gait even and symmetrical, so the brain remembers the way you’re supposed to walk. A patient using an exo-skeleton along with a therapist can also take far more steps during a rehab session, meaning he can progress more quickly.
Nolan calls James’s recovery with the exo-skeleton “remarkable.” After the stroke, he was unable to walk at all. Today, he can walk without a cane.
Written By Dr. Sanjay Gupta
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