Craig Hospital joins Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation NeuroRecovery Network

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Jun 05, 2013, 01:13 ET

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. and SHORT HILLS, N.J., June 5, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Craig Hospital and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation are proud to announce that Craig has joined the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation NeuroRecovery Network (NRN). The NRN is a national network of leading-edge rehabilitation centers designed to provide and develop therapies to promote functional recovery and improve the health and quality of life for people living with paralysis. Funded by the Reeve Foundation through a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the NRN translates the latest scientific advances into effective, activity-based rehabilitation treatments.

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The NRN currently consists of six rehabilitation centers in the U.S.; Craig is now the seventh. An eighth NRN site is based in Canada. The therapy offered by the NRN is called locomotor training, which is an intensive, activity-based therapy that seeks to re-train the nervous system by stimulating stepping and walking for persons with spinal cord injury. Each center is staffed with a group of professionals and clinicians who have received specialized training in order to deliver this type of locomotor training. Staff includes directors, physicians, administrative and clinical supervisors, physical therapists, rehab technicians, and data managers. Craig will start enrolling patients immediately.

In 2012, the NRN published eleven peer-reviewed studies in the September issue of Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. In addition, NRN published a study in the Journal of Neurological Physical Therapy that found that expenses associated with equipment, home renovations, and transportation decreased up to 25% for patients with patients with motor incomplete spinal cord injury due to function gained following intensive locomotor training intervention.

"The research supports that locomotor training is beneficial to people living with spinal cord injury, even in those who have been injured for quite some time," said Susan Howley, Executive Vice President of Research at the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

"We are very excited about the opportunity to join the NRN in order to extend the continuum of care for the patients we serve," said Candy Tefertiller, Craig's Director of Physical Therapy. "We are also honored to join a network of other highly respected professionals who are working to advance spinal cord injury clinical treatment and research," said Tefertiller.

For more information on enrollment criteria, please email [email protected].

About the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation
The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation is dedicated to curing spinal cord injury by funding innovative research and improving the quality of life for people living with paralysis through grants, information and advocacy. We meet all 20 of the Better Business Bureau's standards for charity accountability and hold the BBB's Charity Seal. For more information, please visit our website at www.ChristopherReeve.org or call 800-225-0292.

About Craig Hospital
Craig Hospital is world renowned as a premier long term acute care, rehabilitation and research hospital exclusively specializing in patients with spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury. Craig is a 93-bed, private, not-for-profit, free-standing hospital that provides a comprehensive system of inpatient and outpatient medical care, rehabilitation, neurosurgical interventions, and long-term follow-up services. www.craighospital.org

SOURCE Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation