NeuroRecovery Network

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What it is:
The NeuroRecovery Network (NRN) is a cooperative network of seven cutting-edge clinical rehabilitation centers that provide and develop therapies to promote functional recovery and improve the health and quality of life of people living with paralysis. NRN is a perfect example of basic science being translated to the clinic and changing lives. The Locomotor Training (LT) that NRN centers are now deploying is the result of research that the Reeve Foundation began supporting decades ago. This program, currently working with individuals who have incomplete cervical and thoracic injuries, involves suspending patients in harnesses over treadmills while therapists move their legs to simulate walking.

Participants in the NRN become part of a network-wide database that is collecting comprehensive medical information about the progress of each patient. As of June 2010, 355 subjects had been entered into the database. By collecting and analyzing this information, the NRN can accurately measure program outcomes. The NRN publishes data from its studies in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The effort is currently funded by the Reeve Foundation through a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In late 2008, the Foundation expanded its NRN to include a Community Fitness and Wellness (CFW) Program, designed to provide support for the development of specialized health and wellness facilities for individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) and other physical disabilities. NRN CFW facilities are an opportunity for people with physical disabilities to improve their life-long health and fitness through activity-based exercise including locomotor training, electrical stimulation cycling, and strength and cardiovascular training. CFW facilities give people living in their communities access to affordable and effective activity-based exercise. They are staffed by athletic trainers, personal trainers and exercise physiologists, together referred to as activity-based technicians who are trained annually by the NRN's clinical centers. This insures that all CFW facilities deploy fitness and wellness exercise in a standardized way.

What it has accomplished/what we have learned:
All participants change, but all change differently. Some show significant improvements in function, including trunk control, endurance, speed of walking and balance, which translate into better ability to perform activities of daily living and reduce dependence on caregivers. There are demonstrable improvements in cardiovascular, pulmonary, and bladder function and increased bone density. In general, participants are showing improved overall physical well-being and quality of life.

What are the next steps:
Presently, the NRN clinical centers are accepting only individuals with an incomplete cervical or thoracic spinal cord injury with some movement or muscle tone in their legs. However, planning is underway to expand this population in the NRN clinical centers, as well as to grow the number of NRN CFW facilities around the country.

Get additional information about the NeuroRecovery Network (NRN).