FYI Medical terms
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a potentially debilitating disease in which your body’s immune system eats away at the protective sheath (myelin) that covers your nerves, according to the Mayo Clinic’s website.
Damage to myelin causes interference in the communication between your brain, spinal cord and other areas of your body. This condition may result in deterioration of the nerves themselves, a process that’s not reversible.
Symptoms vary widely, depending on the amount of damage and the nerves that are affected. People with severe cases of multiple sclerosis may lose the ability to walk or speak clearly. Multiple sclerosis can be difficult to diagnose early in the course of the disease because symptoms often come and go — sometimes disappearing for months.
Multiple sclerosis has no cure. However, treatments may help treat MS attacks, manage symptoms and reduce progress of the disease.
Foot drop, sometimes called drop foot, is a general term for difficulty lifting the front part of the foot. If you have foot drop, you may drag the front of your foot on the ground when you walk, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Foot drop isn’t a disease. Rather, foot drop is a sign of an underlying neurological, muscular or anatomical problem.
Sometimes foot drop is temporary. In other cases, foot drop is permanent. If you have foot drop, you may need to wear a brace on your ankle and foot to hold your foot in a normal position.
A frustrated Janis Rice of Rochester Hills sat down at the computer in December to find answers.
Rice, a 63-year-old retiree who has struggled with multiple sclerosis and a dropped left foot, said, “I had been dragging that foot for 35 years.
“I was tired.”
She wound up finding a device that has given her hope.
“People need to know,” she said, referring to WalkAide, a neurostimulator device that cues the brain to help with walking.
Foot drop or dropped foot is a condition caused by weakness or paralysis of the muscles involved in lifting the front of the foot.
A person with it will drag the toe of the shoe or slap the foot on the floor.
The WalkAide device functions by using a microprocessor with a built-in tilt sensor that allows for timing of stimulus to create a normalized gait pattern. About the size of a deck of cards, the device fits on a small cuff worn around the calf. It has no external wires and was developed and commercialized by Hanger Inc.’s business unit Innovative Neurotronics, Inc.
At the clinic
After finding the device online, Rice and her husband, Marshall, visited the Hanger Clinic in Waterford to have one fitted.
The device emits an electrical impulse which feels like a low-voltage charge.
In a video her husband Marshall took video of Janis wearing the device for the first time, she is standing between two raised rails, looking hopeful. Then she walks.
“I said, ‘oh my god, I can’t believe this,’” she recalled.
Marshall cried, he said.
She’s been so happy, said Marshall, with what the Rices call the “brain in a box.”
Because everyone walks differently, a clinician must program the device’s software to user’s gait. The device, which has electrodes that sit next to the skin, requires a doctor’s prescription and isn’t guaranteed for everyone.
The device costs between $5,000-$6,000, said Rice. An online fundraiseris underway to raise the cash needed to buy one.
Wearing the device recently at her home, Janis raves about the WalkAide, which she said has helped her stability and ability to get around. She said she rarely uses her electric wheelchair now.
“I’m tall, 5’8” and I’d spent a long time looking up at people from my wheelchair or leaning forward,” she said.
“Now I look down instead of up.”
She wears the device, which is battery-operated and about the size of a pack of cigarettes, strapped below her knee during the daytime. At night she wears a rigid boot splint for the foot drop.
She works out with a physical therapist three times a week to strengthen her muscles and improve balance.
“The therapist says can’t believe what she’s seen because of this,” said Rice.
Rice has a goal of one day walking with only a 4-pronged cane.
She beamed, saying, “I’m so bound and determined.
“I’m happy to wake up in the morning and walk.”