Helpful Info

I'm back home, and Bill is in Baltimore. I wanted to share with you the significance of the photos from the June 18 post. The cycling video shows Dan in his warm up stage where the motor is doing the work. After the 10-minute warm-up, the electrodes attached to Dan's muscles kick in, and soon it is only Dan doing the cycling, not the machine. This is important because it is no longer passive movement, but active. Dan is building muscle, plus his brain/nerves are trying to relearn that movement.


The sitting up photo is also good news. The goal was for him to hold his head up, using all the muscles in that area, for 4 minutes. He was able to hold position for 7 minutes. Easy for us, quite difficult for C1/C2 SCI patient.

Following is a very basic explanation of the Asia scale used to classify spinal cord injury:

American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale
A = Complete: No motor or sensory function is preserved in the sacral segments S4-S5.

B = Incomplete: Sensory but not motor function is preserved below the neurological level and includes the sacral segments S4-S5.

C = Incomplete: Motor function is preserved below the neurological level, and more than half of key muscles below the neurological level have a muscle grade less than 3.

D = Incomplete: Motor function is preserved below the neurological level, and at least half of key muscles below the neurological level have a muscle grade of 3 or more.

E = Normal: motor and sensory function are normal.