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Dr. Alison Cernich: One of the most limiting physical disabilities is the ability to get around.
It often limits the places that you can go, and how much you can get around in your community.
The National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research focus on mobility because
part of our mission is to address physical disability.
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One of the exciting technologies that we supported is called ZeroG, which stands for zero gravity.
Dr. Joseph Hidler: So we can literally give patients a zero g experience.
I can make a person completely weightless, or we can require a patient to support their full body weight.
Dr. Cernich: What the ZeroG system does is allows someone to move, normally and naturally,
in a rehab clinic setting. And really test their balance. Test their ability to walk.
Dr. Hidler: So a patient who has for example a stroke, they're thinking,
"God, what is life going to be like? I'm in this bed, I can hardly move."
But when you attach them to ZeroG, and it helps them stand up for the first time.
And they take that first step. They say, "Okay, that was hard. But I feel like I'm now on the road to recovery here."
They're practicing these everyday, at a high intensity level.
And remember, because when they're in ZeroG, they don't have to worry about falling.
So they can really push their limits.
When they get discharged and they go home. They see a set of stairs and they say,
"I got this. I've practiced this so many times."
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Dr. Cernich: The research that we support that is being done by Conor Walsh with the soft exosuit
allows us to do the foundational science, to help us understand
how that exosuit is going to behave with a person who has a stroke.
Dr. Conor Walsh: Our team at Harvard and Boston University are studying the biomechanics
and physiology of human walking, trying to understand what makes that such an efficient process,
and how this can get disrupted when someone suffers a stroke.
Dr. Cernich: And it's got little gears and engines that help propel the leg that has the paralysis.
So that it's more natural gait for that leg and gives that leg the assist it needs to walk more normally.
It's easier to put on, and it can be used in the community.
Dr. Walsh: We're really excited about the potential for this research to provide a unique tool
that can augment the ability of therapists. And enable a new paradigm in neurorehabilitation that extends
from the clinic to the community.
Dr. Hidler: We have cars that drive themselves. We can do all these things.
It's inexcusable that we cannot have a technology that can give these patients the opportunity
to make just really a full recovery.
Dr. Cernich: And so those are the types of adaptations and novel research that we can fund to help people's day-to-day mobility.
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