Introducing StepAhead Australia
Diving accidents make the headlines but we rarely hear about the aftermath of a spinal cord injury. Imagine a youngster facing life in a wheelchair – perhaps losing control not only of his legs, but also bladder, bowel and sexual function. About eight new cases occur each week, mostly involving teenage boys.
“Oh to be a rat”
Medicine offers little for people with spinal cord injuries. Yet laboratories are rife with experimental therapies. As the late Christopher Reeve once said, “Oh to be a rat”. Reeves played Superman in the blockbuster movie series. A fall from his horse left him paralysed from the neck down. But it was as a quadriplegic that he displayed truly superhuman strength: he used his celebrity muscle to push researchers and funding agencies to get therapies out of the lab and into the clinics.
George and Barbara Owen, the Founders of StepAhead Australia are key to our success and are cut from the same cloth as Christopher Reeve. Their force derives from parental devotion and from the combination of their professional skills. George and Barbara’s son Sam became a quadriplegic after a diving accident at home. George is an orthopaedic surgeon and Barbara, a former nurse. Barbara is a force to be reckoned with. Besides driving StepAhead and attending to Sam’s needs, she runs an organic cattle farm. George and Barbara Owen found out what a difficult task it is getting the medical establishment to think of spinal cord injury as a curable disease. It seemed like a suggestion from another planet. When George and Barbara founded the organisation in 1998 as the ‘Spinal Cord Society of Australia’ their focus was to establish local research laboratories here in Australia. In 2008 with progress and maturation of the organisation our focus has been redefined to translating international research into therapies as ‘StepAhead Australia’.
continue....
http://www.stepahead.org.au/pages/ab...who-we-are.php
Diving accidents make the headlines but we rarely hear about the aftermath of a spinal cord injury. Imagine a youngster facing life in a wheelchair – perhaps losing control not only of his legs, but also bladder, bowel and sexual function. About eight new cases occur each week, mostly involving teenage boys.
“Oh to be a rat”
Medicine offers little for people with spinal cord injuries. Yet laboratories are rife with experimental therapies. As the late Christopher Reeve once said, “Oh to be a rat”. Reeves played Superman in the blockbuster movie series. A fall from his horse left him paralysed from the neck down. But it was as a quadriplegic that he displayed truly superhuman strength: he used his celebrity muscle to push researchers and funding agencies to get therapies out of the lab and into the clinics.
George and Barbara Owen, the Founders of StepAhead Australia are key to our success and are cut from the same cloth as Christopher Reeve. Their force derives from parental devotion and from the combination of their professional skills. George and Barbara’s son Sam became a quadriplegic after a diving accident at home. George is an orthopaedic surgeon and Barbara, a former nurse. Barbara is a force to be reckoned with. Besides driving StepAhead and attending to Sam’s needs, she runs an organic cattle farm. George and Barbara Owen found out what a difficult task it is getting the medical establishment to think of spinal cord injury as a curable disease. It seemed like a suggestion from another planet. When George and Barbara founded the organisation in 1998 as the ‘Spinal Cord Society of Australia’ their focus was to establish local research laboratories here in Australia. In 2008 with progress and maturation of the organisation our focus has been redefined to translating international research into therapies as ‘StepAhead Australia’.
continue....
http://www.stepahead.org.au/pages/ab...who-we-are.php
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