Relearning How to Walk

    ALPHARETTA, GA, July 08, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- This week, a Greenwood woman discovered she could once again bend her legs herself.

What seems like a simple movement took an enormous amount of concentration, focus and muscle therapy. But it was a huge breakthrough for Jazzmin Brown, who was paralyzed after a heroin overdose in October 2012. It's one of many she'll need to reach her goal of walking again.

This week, she's wrapping up a month long program at Project Walk Atlanta, an intensive rehabilitation center for people with spinal injuries. Brown, 21, won't be up and walking at the completion of her therapy. That's a goal that could take years of hard work and training, but she's regaining some control of her legs, which is an encouraging first step.

The heroin overdose caused her spine to swell, paralyzing her hands and legs. But Brown has found out that being a quadriplegic doesn't necessarily mean the nerve connections to her hands and legs are permanently cut off. Even before leaving for Atlanta, Brown's legs would twitch from time to time, and she already had begun to get control of her arms, allowing her to browse the Web on her tablet or put on makeup.

In four weeks in Atlanta, she's gained more strength to lift and push with her arms and can use her abs to lift and stabilize her legs. She's learned weight exercises to help her straighten her arms. Trainers have moved her legs to try to retrain the motion of walking, and she's regained more movement.

During one session, Brown was hooked into a harness to support her body and hold her upright. She stood on a treadmill; and as the belt slowly moved underneath, trainers picked up her feet, bent her knees and helped her walk. Brown wasn't controlling the movement herself, but seeing herself walk in the mirror and on video was amazing, inspiring and motivating, she said.

"That was an amazing feeling to be able to see myself doing it," Brown said. "A lot of places won't do that. They'll say you don't have movement, and that will be the end of it. They're seeing people with no movement getting it every day. It was just amazing."

"It's super inspiring"
The trip to Atlanta also gave Brown a huge dose of inspiration, which has made her want to relearn to walk even more. Since coming to Project Walk Atlanta, she's seen a 14-year-old girl who had regained a large amount of leg movement and a man, who was a quadriplegic like herself, working on taking his own steps, she said.

"They're all living fulfilling lives. It's super inspiring," Brown said. "They've done it, and those people have actually broken their spines. Mine isn't broken, but my nerves just died. It's harder for them to gain any function back, and they did. I know that as time goes on and I keep working at it, then eventually something is going to happen for me, too."

Project Walk Atlanta has been helping people with spinal injuries regain movement through intensive therapy since March 2012. Founder Paul Pickard, his wife Jeannie and his son Christopher launched the center after seeing how therapy at a Project Walk center in California helped his son, who was paralyzed in a car accident in high school.

Research has shown that intense activity-based therapy can help to reconnect the brain to places in the body that are affected by trauma to the spinal cord.

THE BROWN FILE
Age: 21
Hometown: Greenwood
Condition: C5-C7 quadriplegic complete. She has some
arm movement, but her hands and legs are paralyzed
What happened: Overdosed on heroin in October 2012,
which stopped her lungs and heart and caused spinal swelling,
which led to paralysis
Now: Is narcotic-free. Gives speeches to schools, youth
groups and juvenile detention programs about the dangers
of drugs and alcohol
Goal: Wants to walk again and regain movement in her
arms and legs to become more independent
Website: www.facebook.com/jazzmins.journey

Brown raised $12,000 through fundraisers and by giving speeches to schools, youth groups and other organizations, sharing the story of her battle with alcohol and drugs. She's now narcotic-free, which has meant relying on Tylenol instead of stronger painkillers to fight pain after outpatient surgeries or other injuries.

"Miracles do happen"
Brown is taking advantage of every moment of therapy, doing three-hour workouts every weekday since arriving at Project Walk Atlanta in the beginning of June. That's a more rigorous schedule than most people take on at the center, Pickard said, but the hard work has already greatly increased her mobility.

"She has progressed in a lot of ways. She is stronger. Her core is more stable. She's getting activation in her quads," Pickard said. "She is really pushing her body and pushing herself."

Walking again is Brown's ultimate goal, but she also wants to improve her mobility to become
more independent. Since her overdose, she needs help to do almost all day-to-day activities
from getting out of bed to getting ready for the day ahead.

"I want to be independent, and at the same time I want to show people that miracles do happen. And if you become wheelchair bound, you don't have to be. You can work through it," she said.

Her mother, Missie Brown, has witnessed her daughter's growth in the program. This week as Jazzmin Brown was bending her own legs, trainers quickly called everyone over. Missie Brown and Pickard both got to watch as she pushed down with her legs and worked to support her weight.

"I wish we could stay longer because it seems every week she's getting stronger," Missie Brown said. "She literally pushed her weight up. They bent her legs, and she pushed them to a straight position bearing her weight. She was able to do it like five more times, so that was quite amazing."

A person's recovery is driven by their motivation and devotion to continuing therapy after leaving Project Walk Atlanta, Pickard said. Trainers have taught Jazzmin Brown the exercises she needs to continue rebuilding her nerve and muscle connections and it will be up to her to continue, he said.

Once they're back in Greenwood, Jazzmin and Missie Brown want to find a personal trainer. Since the Project Walk Atlanta team continues to develop new training techniques, they could go back for a week long program to help assess her progress and start the next phase of therapy,
Missie Brown said.

STORY BY STEVE GARBACZ
DAILY JOURNAL
dailyjournal.net

Project Walk Atlanta is recognized as an international non-profit that provides an Intense Activity Based Recovery Program for individuals living with a Spinal Cord Injury, Multiple Sclerosis, Guillain Barre, Tranverse Myelitis, Paralyzed, Tetraplegia, Paraplegia.

Established in 2012, Project Walk Atlanta was founded to provide a long term recovery initiative towards Spinal Cord Injuries. Our program utilizes research supported programs to activate and regenerate the nervous system.

Research has shown that intense activity-based therapy can help to reconnect the brain to places in the body that are affected by trauma to the spinal cord. While engaged in therapy, the client will think about performing an exercise such as flexing or extending their hip, while the specialists act as their nervous system and move their extremities. By sending signals from the brain to the extremities, and vise versa, the nervous system can slowly begin to reclaim those movements as it tries repair itself.

http://www.projectwalkatlanta.org
1755 Grassland Pkwy Ste B.
Alpharetta, Ga. 30004
[email protected]
678-580-1404

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