Photograph by Jeremy Kramer
In April 2020, Kaitlyn Reynolds of Franklin, Ohio, then 19, lost her boyfriend and the future she’d had planned in a split second. The car she was riding in crashed, and she sustained a spinal cord injury paralyzing her from the waist down—a devastating discovery to wake up to after a week in a coma. Her mother informed her that her boyfriend died in the crash and she’d never feel her legs again.
Reynolds spent years in the hospital, stuck at home, and in therapy to recover. She recalls she couldn’t even pick up a fork at first, but she eventually got a license and a modified vehicle so she could get out and about.
Today, thanks to miraculous new technology, you’ll see Reynolds, now 24, not only driving but also standing and “walking” with assistance from a device called an exoskeleton. Amazing, yes, but it’s not as straightforward as popping on robotic legs and going.
Reynolds isn’t alone. Around 1.7 percent of the U.S. population—more than 5 million people—live with some form of paralysis. Of those 5 million, more than 27 percent experience paralysis due to spinal cord injuries, according to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.
Reynolds’s exoskeleton technology, called the ReWalk 7, helps her stand and walk by propelling her forward. Medicare has recently begun covering the device, an important development since it can cost up to $100,000.
Using the exoskeleton might seem like futuristic robotic magic, but it’s actually a lot of work, says Reynolds. She does physical therapy with it twice a week at TriHealth Arrow Springs in Lebanon, spending 90 minutes per session in the device.
“It isn’t something you just put on and then walk out of the clinic,” says Emily Roessler, area sales director at Massachusetts-based Lifeward, makers of the ReWalk. “You’re trying to walk in a really hard way, because you don’t have feeling and things like that that you normally have. So you’re relearning how to balance weight, shift, stand, turn, and walk. Eventually, if Kaitlyn wants, she can go up and down curves and steps.”
Roessler says the company has placed about 800 ReWalk personal exoskeletons with patients so far. Besides helping with patients’ mental health challenges, the device also offers deeply physical benefits, she says, including improved spasticity, circulation, pain management, and bowel function. The company reports that 84 percent of patients were still using it after 12 months.
TriHealth physical therapist Beth Hahne says she was excited to try the technology with Reynolds. Though she’d helped patients with other exoskeletons or standing frames, this was the first time she’d encountered one as advanced as the ReWalk. The device attaches to the waist and legs and works with “smart crutches” to propel the user forward.
“Keeping mobility is the key,” says Michael Kachmann, M.D., a neurosurgeon and spine specialist at Mayfield Brain & Spine. He’s not Reynolds’s doctor, but he works with patients experiencing similar challenges. “When people sit in a wheelchair for a long time, their muscles atrophy, joints get stiff, and they lose mobility.”
For Reynolds, increased mobility widens her chances at the life she had before and the future she dreamed of. She’d been living on her own, working at Bob Evans, and hoped to become a marine biologist. The exoskeleton helps reopen many of those doors.
“I really feel like the exoskeleton is going to give her more opportunities,” says Hahne. “The long-term goal is independence, including working again, so once she’s able to stand for periods of time it’s going to open up a lot more opportunities.”
Eventually, if she completes all of the necessary steps required by insurance, Reynolds will be able to keep the ReWalk and make it part of her daily life. Roessler says most patients used it one to five times per week in the company’s clinical research studies.
“I have high hopes in our ability to continue to move forward in this field,” Kachmann says. “Exoskeletons are probably the first evolution in dealing with this type of paralysis. I can see a future with implantable electrodes that tell the muscle to move, helping people regain important functions.”
In addition to a promising future, Reynolds knows the exoskeleton holds the potential for an everyday privilege we take for granted. “I just wanted to be able to walk again, see people at my eye level, and hug people without them having to break their back,” she says.
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