You've read the article. Now tell us what you think.

For more information

Sherrie Drakeford, whose multiple sclerosis and cancer left her drained of energy and hoping that she one day would make her way in the world without a wheelchair, waited years for a chance to try a relatively new therapy called suspended ambulation.

The 46-year-old mother of two was so determined to try the therapy that, when her insurance company denied payment, she and her husband agreed to pay for it themselves. "This is a real active time of life," she said. "I want to participate as much as I can."

Four months after working with Patricia Winchester, PhD, PT, chair of the physical therapy department at the University of Texas Southwestern Allied Health Sciences School in Dallas, Drakeford can walk—albeit slowly and with difficulty—with a walker. "She went from being a household ambulator to a community ambulator," Winchester said.

From cats to humans

The technique, which Winchester has used to treat about 12 patients, uses a harness to reduce the patient’s body weight while walking, or relearning to walk, on a treadmill. "It’s quite a harness," Drakeford said. "I’ve never been mountain climbing, but I’ve been told it’s like a mountain-climbing harness."

Winchester generally begins with a 40 percent reduction in the patient’s body weight, then gradually decreases the support. "In the past, we have asked them to work under full body weight, so they compensate and use auxiliary muscles," Winchester said. think by partially suspending their weight, it allows them to learn to walk more naturally."

The technique was developed by Anton Wernig, MD, professor of physiology at the University of Bonn, who based it on animal studies conducted in the 1980s at UCLA and the University of Montreal. By providing the animals with partial body support, experimenters trained cats whose spinal cords had been severed in the middle region to step on a treadmill. After three to six months of daily sessions, the researchers found, the animals were able to walk, correctly positioning their hind legs and readily adjusting to the speed of the machine.

In one of Wernig’s studies, 44 patients with chronic spinal cord injuries were trained on the treadmill for 10 to 12 weeks. At the beginning of the study, only six could walk with a walker; the rest were confined to wheelchairs. But at the end of the training program, 38 patients could walk unassisted using a walker or cane.

Researchers theorize that practicing a specific series of movements provides sensory information that re-educates the spinal cord. "The basis for treadmill training is to facilitate the locomotive center in the spinal cord, which is thought to control the patterned reciprocal stepping motion we see during walking," Winchester said.

Not for everyone

UCLA Medical Center’s Neurological Rehabilitation and Research Unit, a pioneer in the technique, is using the therapy on patients with stroke, brain trauma, spinal cord injury, MS, Parkinson’s, and Guillain-Barre Syndrome. So far, Winchester has confined her work to three types of disorders: MS, brain trauma, and incomplete spinal cord injuries.

"Some were ambulating at the time and it was to improve their ambulation. But others weren’t ambulating at all," she said. Drakeford, for example, hadn’t walked in five years.

Even if patients need to be instructed in foot placement with each footfall, walking comes back quickly, Winchester said. "The treadmill puts the foot in the automatic nature of walking. Once you give them a little bit of help, walking is automatic."

But automatic doesn’t mean easy. "It’s still a lot of work for me," Drakeford admits. "But when you’re disabled, what seems like a small thing to someone else is a big thing for you."

Unfortunately, those who want the therapy will have a hard time finding it, and an even more difficult time funding it. Only four organizations in the country own the expensive equipment, which starts in the tens of thousands of dollars, or have staff members trained in the technique. As for payment, "nobody’s paying for it," Winchester said. "It’s really good, but I don’t think insurance companies think it’s economically viable."

It’s not for everyone, either. Winchester worries that reports of people who have gone from wheelchairs to walkers will raise false hopes. "I have had calls from people with full spinal cord injuries and I have to tell them that there really is no point in doing this," she said. "That’s the really hard part."