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Mechanical suits known as exoskeletons can help people with spinal cord injuries stand up and walk away from their wheelchairs - but not without training.
It's the TedMed conference in 2011, and 37-year-old Paul Thacker grunts a little as he rises to his feet using forearm crutches and plods slowly across the stage of the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, California. The crowd claps. The teetering walk hardly seems worthy of the applause, especially for a profes- sional snowmobiler who once held the world record for distance jumping, clearing the length of a football field. But this no ordinary walk, because Paul is paraplegic.
In November 2010, Thacker crashed dur- ing a practice jump. On his blog, he described his accident as "a little get off", which "left me with a broken back and no feeling from my chest down." But Thacker and others with similar injuries might soon trade in their wheelchairs for 'exoskeletons' - electrome- chanical ambulatory-assistance devices, like the one Thacker used at TedMed, that enable those paralysed by spinal cord injuries to rise up from their chairs and walk.
Devices that support patients as they walk upright first emerged in the 1990s. But the early versions required overhead harnesses, which limited walking to treadmills. That has changed, and today's exoskeletons are effec- tively wearable robots that provide the power to enable movement. Commercial exoskele- tons produced by Ekso Bionics of Richmond, California, Rex Bionics, based in Auckland, New Zealand, and Argo Medical Technolo- gies in Israel have already reached the market. Another commercial device is soon to be released, and more are in development.
"This is a very exciting time," says José Contreras-Vidal, who specializes in healthcare robotics at the University of Houston in Texas. Early users have already given their approval to the devices. Ann Spungen, an exercise physiologist at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, has helped patients to use the devices. "I have had wonderful experiences of seeing patients become quite ecstatic," she says. "They love to stand upright and make eye-to-eye contact. Family members come to stand beside them the first few times. Patients then want to walk upstairs."
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