ARGENTINA: A disabled boy who doctors said would never walk is standing and walking on his own thanks to his father's unique rehab walker

Record ID: 446693

  • Title: ARGENTINA: A disabled boy who doctors said would never walk is standing and walking on his own thanks to his father's unique rehab walker
  • Date: 10th November 2011
  • Summary: DISABLED PATIENT, PABLO FERNANDEZ SABIO'S FEET AS HE WALKS IN THE STREET FERNANDEZ WALKING IN THE STREET (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) DISABLED PATIENT WHO USES CARDILE WALKING STIMULATOR FOR THERAPY, PABLO FERNANDEZ SABIO, SAYING: "It is the first time, in such a short amount of time that I have felt so much improvement."
  • Embargoed: 25th November 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Argentina, Argentina
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: Health,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA4XIQMOH68JXWTWRMI285W2B9H
  • Story Text: When young Ivo was born in 2004 doctors said he would never walk, but his father, Jorge Cardile, was determined to prove them wrong and see his son walking someday, against the odds. Ivo had been diagnosed with static encephalopathy - permanent or unchanging brain damage - and cerebral palsy which greatly limited the use of his arms and legs.
    Ivo was born weighing just 2.5 kilograms (5.5 pounds) with severe brain damage sustained in the womb.
    After just 23 hours of life, the tiny newborn suffered a seizure that left him in a coma for four days.
    Doctors explained to Cardile and the boy's mother that a fourth of Ivo's brain was missing with another quarter destroyed and the remaining half, which at first seemed healthy, was also injured.
    Cardile, who runs an auto repair shop outside Buenos Aires, says the doctors didn't have much hope.
    By the time his son was three-years-old they had suggested an invasive surgery in which surgeons open the spine and cut what they called "bad information" sent from the brain from reaching the legs and feet, but even this did not promise him any hope of walking.
    But Cardile wasn't ready to give up.
    "Well, there wasn't a solution. [He had] clubbed feet, his feet deformed, his hand withdrawn up close to his chest and so. I was lacking the central computer, so I think, if my computer is broken - all the books and all the doctors say the command comes from the brain to the feet - but I don't have a brain. How can I do it? I have to do something. And well, I got the idea to put the brain in the feet. And so I put the brain in his feet and we got results. We've seen results in him and a ton of people," Cardile said.
    Cardile quickly drew up plans, and within a month and a half he had his first "rehab walker" assembled from a bicycle and wooden planks.
    He said the first attempt had limited success so he went back to the drawing table and over time perfected his creation into what it is today.
    Now 7-years-old , young Ivo trains in the rehab walker for just ten minutes a day and Cardile says the results are indisputable - his son his walking.
    Ivo smiles on board the machine and the young patient's energy is captivating as he joyfully practices training his muscles and posture so that he can walk unassisted.
    He even does some pull-ups to show his proud dad how strong he has become.
    Seeing his son's success, Cardile invited other disabled patients, like Pablo Fernandez Sabio, to try his rehab walker.
    Cardile says the results speak for themselves as dozens of patients suffering any number of motor debilitating diagnoses are reaping the benefits of his revolutionary machine.
    "It is the first time, in such a short amount of time that I have felt so much improvement," Sabio said.
    Other patients come to the tiny clinic Cardile has set up and say they quickly see improvements, but the unlikely inventor dreams of helping countless others who have been told they will never walk.
    He has invested all his savings into four prototypes he has built himself. He has tried to get other clinics in Argentina to look at his machine, but convincing doctors and governmental officials to see his work has proven more difficult than he had anticipated.
    Recently he was contacted by a group in Uruguay interested in his rehab walker. The group said they had 20 young patients they wanted to treat. Because they did not plan on charging their patients, Cardile sold them a rehab walker for less than it cost him to build.
    He says he is out of money and cannot produce anymore until he can secure a company interested in producing the walkers.
    The rehab walker, according to Cardile, can help any number of people with motor disabilities and can reduce physical therapy times from 3 to 4 hours to just ten minutes a day.
    "Stroke, medullar injury, it helps all diagnosis that have to do with motor problems. It straightens the spine. We have cases where it greatly reduces scoliosis, corrects posture. And the little ones, they advance mentally. What is good is that it is not at all invasive. The kids have fun, sing, play when they are in the machine. We are stretching them out and teaching them how to walk and they don't even realize it. They have fun," Cardile said.
    One patient at a time, this car mechanic and determined father is making believers out of his critics and out of those he cares for most, the patients like Ivo who are up out of their chairs and walking despite the odds.
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