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Evelyn’s Story: A Moving Milestone on Anniversary of Spinal Cord Injury
Evelyn and her young daughter, Julia, were rear-ended by a driver traveling at high speed. After 10 days in an acute-care hospital, Evelyn transferred to Shirley Ryan AbilityLab for inpatient care and rehabilitation.
Patient Story
Looking Back at the 2024 Olympics & Paralympics
The 2024 Olympics and Paralympics may be over, but Shirley Ryan AbilityLab celebrated the athletes and para athletes, the spirit of competition, and human ability in ways that will live on after the games. Here’s a look back at top memories from Paris 2024.
Blog
Breathing Low Oxygen to Enhance Spinal Stimulation Training and Functional Recovery in Persons with Chronic Spinal Cord Injury: The BO2ST Trial
The goal of this double-blind, placebo-controlled, block-randomized clinical trial is to investigate the efficacy and potency of daily acute intermittent hypoxia (AIH) combined with transcutaneous electrical spinal stimulation (tSTIM) and skill-based walking practice.
Research Project
ExoNET for Gait
Is it possible to use a network of springs to make up for what the muscles do during walking and hence assist gait? This study shows the potential of the ExoNET device to reproduce the torques generated by your muscles while you walk. We feel that this structural design can guide devices in the future and may lead to clinical tools that are lightweight, unintimidating, easy to use, and inexpensive.
Research Project
ExoNET
Can you build a minimally-actuated exo-robot as a wearable orthosis? Maybe one that is most simply built out of springs? It may not do everything, but what can you do? The secret is to allow networks of springs, and structural optimization algorithm that tells us how to build it.
Research Project
Breathing Low Oxygen to Enhance Spinal Stimulation Training and Functional Recovery in Persons with Chronic Spinal Cord Injury
Walking recovery is a key goal after spinal cord injury (SCI). While some patients experience spontaneous recovery due to preserved neural circuits, many struggle to achieve independent ambulation, and those who do often face persistent deficits. There is growing consensus that a single approach is insufficient to overcome these challenges, prompting the need for combined interventions.
Age Range
18-70
Clinical Trial
Multimodal Haptic Feedback for Plantar Sensory Substitution
Plantar sensation is crucial for gait, balance, and posture, and its loss contributes to movement disorders in conditions like multiple sclerosis, diabetes, stroke, and spinal cord injury. Current diagnostic methods use pressure sensor arrays to assess gait deficiencies, with wireless insole technology extending data collection beyond clinical settings. Building on these advances, we are investigating sensory substitution as a potential solution to restore lost plantar sensation and improve outcomes for affected individuals.
Age Range
18-85
Clinical Trial
Identification of sensory-motor control in reaching
Sensory inputs such as vision, proprioception, and touch play a crucial role in post-stroke recovery. Our research delves into how these sensory contributions can be assessed to develop effective, personalized therapy strategies. Enhancing and tailoring sensory inputs to an individual’s needs allows us to explore how learning outcomes can be improved and errors reduced. Through synthetic simulations that combine muscular, visual, and proprioceptive inputs, we aim to understand better the complex processes involved in motor learning.
Research Project
Altering Post-Stroke Motor Recovery
True behavioral restitution, a return to normal motor patterns with the affected limb post-stroke, requires the recruitment and restoration of the residual ipsilesional hemisphere/corticospinal tract (CST). Following stroke, the spontaneous recovery mechanism selectively and continuously uses a more optimized neural network for motor execution, depending on the degree of CST damage.
Research Project
Shirley Ryan AbilityLab Psychologist Featured in PBS Next Avenue Story about Chronic Pain
Next Avenue, a digital PBS publication, recently featured Shirley Ryan AbilityLab clinical psychologist Claire Pedersen, PsyD, in a story about the connection between chronic pain and anger — and how anger can have an impact on the perception, intensity and frequency of pain.
News
Forearm ExoNET
Can you build a soft, exo-robot as a wearable orthosis to provide assistance during both rehabilitation and activities of daily living? Can this same device also be used as a therapeutic device by tuning to anti-assistance mode, providing more meaningful therapy to the user?
Research Project
Eglove
Body Computer Interface (BCI) is the idea that one can control a robot simply by thinking about it. In this study, we are laying the groundwork for further BCI and robotic development for individuals to control a hand opening device called the Electro encephalographic mediated glove (or Eglove) using an EEG cap connected to a motorized glove.
Research Project