Project Walk®- Spinal Cord Injury Recovery

We believe in this statement and we believe in those who choose to pursue exercise-based recovery. This section of the website is dedicated to helping those newly injured who are still in the hospital. This is the time to plan for recovery. Each day and each month that goes by, your body and your brain adapt to its new environment making improvement harder to achieve.

The first six months

During this timeframe, your future will be determined. Without proper stimulation, gravity, and load bearing, the human body will deteriorate. This means you begin losing bone density, muscle mass and central nervous system function.

Most of the clients we have met over the last six years have waited too long to start their recovery process. Their bodies have adapted to the SCI environment where their muscles are controlled by tone and spasms and have shortened to fit the wheelchair, and most have issues with bone density loss. These issues can be reduced or avoided through exercise.

In the last year, doctors and hospital staff started referring newly injured clients to Project Walk®. They started right out of the hospital (with doctor clearance) still in neck and back braces. These clients have not adapted to the SCI environment, and have improved faster than many other clients we have seen in the last five years.

Your recovery plan should begin the day of your injury. It is imperative that you research, learn, and under stand the facts of your injury. What you are being told in the hospital and rehab is based on the last 50 years of occupational medicine; not recovery.

Ten important things you need to know

1. Your Treatment Today:

Your treatment today has nothing to do with recovery; it’s purely occupational. Occupational treatment is promoted because most believe there is nothing you can do to increase your chances of regaining function. Everything you are being told is based on occupational medicine that hasn’t changed in over 50 years. The only goal is to get you out of the hospital and teach you and your caregiver the tools necessary to make your life in a wheelchair easier. The medications you are given are to treat your symptoms (tone, spasms, etc); those are the very symptoms we believe are needed to recover. Functioning parts of the body are targeted only and worked to increase strength. By working only the non-paralyzed body parts, you are almost guaranteeing that you won’t recover function below your level of injury. Understanding the goals of occupational treatment is very important because it plays a tremendous role in your future. If your goals are to regain function below your level of injury, then you need to change your treatment.

2. Results of traditional treatment:

Of the 11,000 spinal cord injuries a year, the percent of people who regain the ability to walk again is very small. The reason is not always the injury, but the treatment! We have been told by doctors that our new clients would be getting better without our program because they are less than a year post injury and, in most cases, incomplete. So why are over 90% of our clients regaining function beyond the traditional expectations for their injury level? Why are thousands of other injuries each year not progressing beyond their perceived level of recovery? The treatment!

If you were to place an able-bodied person in a reduced gravity environment, tell them they can’t move for a year, heavily medicate them, and give them no hope, what do you think the outcome would be? Bone density, muscle mass, and nervous system activity would begin to shut down and disappear. That able-bodied person would have the same symptoms of a paralyzed person. So, is it just the injury or the treatment that keep some SCI paralyzed? We know that not every new injury will regain their desired function, but since 1999, the vast majority of our clients have regained more function then they were told was possible based on their injury and level.

3. Is recovery guaranteed?

Nothing in life is guaranteed, but if you do nothing, you are almost guaranteed a life without recovery. Taking care of yourself and taking control of your future make life worth living. At Project Walk®, we don’t and can’t promise that you will walk. We do promise the best facility, a positive environment for healing, the best and most highly trained and skilled staff in the world and a long-term, realistic plan that fits your needs as an individual.

4. How long should I wait before I start my recovery?

Once you are healthy and out of the hospital. Every day, every month, and every year that you sit in your wheelchair without nervous system stimulation, the harder it will become to regain function. Do not wait. With this injury, your body is like newly poured concrete--in the beginning you can mold it, but once it sets, it is extremely difficult to work with. We have seen incomplete clients two or more years post injury struggle tremendously with tone and spasm because they did not receive the proper stimulation early on. The unfortunate thing is that these individuals are not alone. Each year hundreds of people wiggle their toes, get return of sensation down their bodies, some can even create movement, but they are told these things are common and not to be excited about the return because it doesn’t mean anything. More often than not, medication is given to eliminate movement and sensation. At this point, the body stops healing and adapts to its new environment. The result is a lifetime in a wheelchair.

This shouldn’t happen. Educate yourself, determine your goals, and try everything in your power to regain function. It may take one year or it could take ten years to regain the ability to walk, however, during this time, you will be improving physically and mentally, proactively increasing your quality of life.

5. What is the timeline to regain function?

There is no timeline or even a deadline to regain function. Each person is different and each injury is different. Only when someone actually regains function do we know that they are healing. Our second client came to us eight years post injury with no controlled movement below the waist. This client never stopped trying to get better and each year there was improvement. At 11 years post injury she was walking, and now, close to 15 years post injury she is still working on improvement. She is a role model to many, not the person who is walking in six months; for most that is unreasonable because recovery takes years, not months. Think of recovery as a lifetime process; it only stops when you stop trying.

6. The doctor tells us we have up to two years to recover:

The doctors are correct in one aspect of the two-year window theory--your body is trying to recover and most people see the majority of their gains in the first two-years. So, if your body is trying to regain function, why not do everything in your power to increase your chances? The human nervous system doesn’t improve without external stimulation. Traditional occupational therapy doesn’t work the paralyzed body. By doing nothing you allow your body to begin to deteriorate. You will lose muscle mass, bone density and central nervous system activity. Increase your chances of recovering by increasing the stimulation and the environment that you place yourself in. You can still recover function well past the two-year mark. The magic two-year mark is based on the assumption you do nothing to improve during that time. And, over the last 50 years or so, most people have not gotten better after the two year mark. The longer one waits to try to recover, the harder it becomes, but it is not impossible. We have worked with people five or more years post injury who are still regaining function. Our message to you is don’t wait. Take advantage of your body’s desire to heal before it is too late.

7. How long is a recovery program?

Since 1999 we have learned by working with people with SCI that no matter what level their injury is, there is no set standard on how long it will take to regain function. Each individual has their own goals and desired outcomes and works towards their needs. No matter what level you are, each injury is different. You can’t compare yourself to others because the damage done to everyone is different and each person regains function differently.

Recovery is a lifetime program and includes all aspects of your life. What you do outside of Project Walk® is equally as important as what you do inside. Successful clients that are regaining function become independent, go back to school or work, and are surrounded by supportive family and friends. Because there is no timeline for recovery, you must develop and implement a life plan.

8. Hope:

Everyone needs hope. Without hope you can’t recover.

9. Should I give up everything and try to recover?

The answer is NO! Clients that give up everything (family, friends, jobs, school, etc.) and move across the country with the determination and mindset that they are going to get better and return home walking, end up failing. Add in undue stress and unattainable recovery timelines and you have an unhappy ending for everyone involved.

Clients that keep their support network and continue on with life are recovering. Recovery isn’t all about walking, it’s about your life and how you live it. Outside of training, be active, play sports, go skiing and horseback riding, go back to school or work. In life, the most successful, happy people are well-rounded. This applies to SCI as well.

If you can’t be an In-House client, it doesn’t mean you can’t recover. This is why we have created the Home-Based Progam and Train Your Trainer programs which are quickly becoming very successful components of our program. The recovery process may be slower, but the rewards are there. We supply the knowledge and know how, and you do the work. For more information on our recovery options, click here.

10. If you are not stimulating your lower body, you will not regain function or use of it!

At one time or another, everyone has heard of someone with SCI who could wiggle a toe. Common sense says that the toes are the farthest point from the site of the injury, so if you can move a toe, why can’t you re-teach everything in between? Think about the song you were taught when you were young--the hip bone is connected to the thigh bone, etc. Humans don’t work as individual parts; the body is one unit. Our nervous system has a simple job; it deals with gravity while creating a stable, upright posture. Without gravity, the nervous system isn’t stimulated to recover. But, when you introduce gravity to the postural skeletal muscles, you stimulate the nervous system, thus creating a demand for recovery.

Because the long muscles of the legs have the greatest levers, they are the easiest to stimulate. As the muscles of the legs regain strength, they create a demand on the muscles above and below the pelvis, stimulating the hip muscles. The healing continues up into the muscles of the low back and abdominal, creating strength and movement. Soon the scapula, the foundation of the arm, is being stabilized. For the first time since the injury, the arms now have a foundation, an anchor, from which to move. Triceps, deltoids, pectoral major and minor are initiated and slowly the upper body begins to regain function.

Without treating the body with load bearing and closed chain exercises using development movement patterns, you will achieve very little improvement.

Symptoms showing potential to regain function:

If you can move a toe, you have the potential to walk! Your toe is furthest from your injury site, yet you can move it. Logically, if the signal can get all the way down to your toe, we can re-train the nervous system to fill in the gap.

If you have spasms, burning, tingling, pain, any type of sensation that goes down your legs, you have a dysfunctional nervous system which can be trained. Spasms aren’t bad unless your goals are occupational. If you start your recovery as soon as you are healthy, you won’t allow them to control your life. All of our clients who have regained the ability to walk have had spasms (uncontrolled muscle contractions), and over time they were able to control them (controlled movement).

If you can move only one muscle in your leg, you have a greater chance of getting them all back. Most injuries cause a strong side and a weaker side of the body. This is normal and needs to be addressed in the beginning of recovery. Training only the strong side causes the body to become more dysfunctional, and will eventually cause walking to be almost impossible. Stimulating the dysfunctional, weaker side with developmental movement patterns creates balance, ultimately resulting in a functional gait.

Results clients often see starting Project Walk® less than six months post injury:

Increased muscle mass
Increased central nervous system activity
Increased health and well-being
Increased sensation including hot and cold, pain, touch, etc. (not all, but most clients receive some or all of these gains)
Increased function below level of injury
Increased occupational skills
Ability to sweat
Decreased drug dependence
Decreased pain

Parting Thoughts

The thought process behind traditional rehabilitation is designed to help those survive in a wheelchair. This is the status quo in the industry, and has been institutionalized for years.

The Project Walk® program (The Dardzinski Method™) was developed for those with SCI and their families and friends who are also affected. Our goals are not based on insurance guidelines or the bottom line. Project Walk® has become a nonprofit organization in order to achieve three goals: make recovery-based training the standard; make our training program more accessible; and change the perception of SCI recovery—that it is possible.