A 34-year-old man had a traumatic thoracic spinal cord injury, with vertebral fracture and a right acetabulum fracture. Dorsal spinal fusion of T6 through T9 was performed on admission. The initial American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale (C) showed incomplete motor T10 lesion.
Exoskeletal locomotion training with hybrid assistive limb1 started 77 days post trauma after radiologic confirmation of consolidation of the acetabulum fracture.
There was recovery of motor functions and walking abilities (video 1 on the Neurology® Web site at Neurology.org) throughout 12 weeks of locomotion training2 with an increase in Walking Index for Spinal Cord Injury II (WISCI-II) score from 8 to 18 (video 2); conversion to ASIA D occurred.
Footnotes
Supplemental data at Neurology.org
Author contributions: Dr. Cruciger: concept, acquisition and data, design and analysis. Prof. Dr. Schwenkreis: critical revision of the manuscript, supervision. Prof. Dr. Tegenthoff: critical revision of the manuscript, supervision. Prof. Dr. Schildhauer: critical revision of the manuscript, supervision. Dr. Aach: concept, design, acquisition and data, supervision.
Study funding: No targeted funding reported.
Disclosure: The authors report no disclosures relevant to the manuscript. Go to Neurology.org for full disclosures.
- © 2014 American Academy of Neurology
Disputes & Debates: Rapid online correspondence
REQUIREMENTS
If you are uploading a letter concerning an article:
You must have updated your disclosures within six months: http://submit.neurology.org
Your co-authors must send a completed Publishing Agreement Form to Neurology Staff (not necessary for the lead/corresponding author as the form below will suffice) before you upload your comment.
If you are responding to a comment that was written about an article you originally authored:
You (and co-authors) do not need to fill out forms or check disclosures as author forms are still valid
and apply to letter.
Submission specifications:
- Submissions must be < 200 words with < 5 references. Reference 1 must be the article on which you are commenting.
- Submissions should not have more than 5 authors. (Exception: original author replies can include all original authors of the article)
- Submit only on articles published within 6 months of issue date.
- Do not be redundant. Read any comments already posted on the article prior to submission.
- Submitted comments are subject to editing and editor review prior to posting.