TykeClone's Journal: The bionic mom

My mom's been a long time sufferer of MS. She must not have a "bad" case of it as I know people who've had it for a shorter time that are in worse shape, but it still sucks. I think that in her case she maintains at a given level for a long time, but then has "attacks" that knock her down a peg or two.

MS eats away at your nerves and makes movement difficult and messes with your sense of touch. One of the issues that this creates is that your normal walking gait is altered because you loose some control of your lower legs. This is the case with my mom.

On Friday, she was fitted with a device that fits on her leg like a knee brace. It has a pickup above the knee and an output below the knee to help transmit the nerve impulse to the lower leg when walking. In trying this out, she apparently walked normally for the first time in years.

The device is not cheap, but it is on par with a set of hearing aids - and for what it can do to help restore normalcy to someone's life it is well worth it.

Bummer to hear that about your mom

[Degrees]

Bummer to hear that your mom has MS. It is cool though, that we've gotten to a point where technology can assist with walking. I assume it made your mom pretty happy - as long as it worked right, and didn't cause more grief.

Re:

[TykeClone]

She's had it a long time and it hasn't been as bad as it could have been. If this thing works the way it sounds like it should, it will be a solid improvement on her quality of life.