Slashdot Mirror

According to a Colorado survey, 86 percent of high-level quadriplegics rated their quality of life as average or better than average, while only 17 percent of their ER doctors, nurses, and technicians thought they would experience an average or better quality of life after sustaining a spinal cord injury.

https://www.christopherreeve.o...

I agree, right now she needs human contact attention, hope, understanding and patience from those around her. Start with low-tech pointing board, watch her eyes and any other expressions she can make. Just as those who lose a sense rely on others, she must rely more on non-verbal communication and those around her must know how to listen. Let her see and touch her baby. Help her to overcome the panic, fear, helplessness and dispair. Help her friends and family.

Once you're ready to move to more technology, start with an iPad or android tablet. Ask her if she would like to see any movies, or listen to music (her partner and family should be able to suggest favorites.) Read Oliver Sach's Musicophelia for information on the neurological healing power of music.

While she is going through rehabilitation, research Dasher and OpenGazer for eye and head tracking to see if they might be useful. Read about coping with paralysis injuries and the possibilities for recovery from The Christopher Reeve Foundation. Make sure that hoping and praying for a cure doesn't morph into "waiting and expecting for a cure." she and her family may have to learn to live with this condition for years even if there is hope on the horizon. I wish you, her and your family well.

A one-size fits all technical solution doesn't yet exist. Begin with low tech, use a pointing board and watch her eyes and face and see if she is able to move any other part of her body. Try to develop a personal communication technique and learn what she is capable of. Move to something like an iPad or Android ask her if there is something she would like to see, music, movies something to help her focus on something other than the fear, pain and bordem. Give her hope. While she is recovering and in rehabilitation, research Dasher and OpenGazer to see if it would help her communicate. Gently support those who are closer to her but who might not have your level of medical or technical understanding. Help them give her the attention, space, touch, rest and love when she needs it.

I wish you and your family well. Look for information and try to support the Christopher Reeve Foundation and other organizations who are working hard on making life better for people with paralysis injuries. I understand that for other types of paralysis injuries, doctors/psychologists often recommend not to give the person hope that a "cure" is eminent because even if a cure is available now, it may be years before it is widely available and it will almost certainly require rehabilitation and that the person is kept mentally and physically healthy until a solution is found.

Some still haven't given up on Reeve.

Umm... Christopher Reeve? As in, "The late Christopher Reeve, who died in October of 2004?"

What it would take to help him now doesn't involve brain transplants; it involves necromancy.

That said, the foundation he and his late wife Dana founded isstill hard at work to find a solution to spinal cord injuries.

Prior to his death, Christopher Reeve invested much of his money to develop this technology for other reasons. It is interesting to finally see something useful AND fun come from his work.

Read more at:

http://www.christopherreeve.org/site/c.geIMLPOpGjF /WiiHelm/development

Too bad Christopher Reeve died before hearing these news.

So the first news about this are from South Korea, the US of A did not lead in this research and who is to blame for that if not the current US government?

What, you think that the people who played COH didn't, in some way or another, worship him while he was alive? You don't think that millions of movie goers and comic book readers, when asked to imagine superman in real life, didn't think of Christopher Reeve?

Christopher Reeve was a living legend, and many, many people extended sympathy and support when he had his accident. I've read in several places, including here, that the reason people are hit by Reeve's death more than, say, Rodney Dangerfield was not because of a difference in, er, respect for the two men, but because people were really expecting him to walk again, and it's sad that now we'll never be able to see that.

I have no doubt that the Christopher Reeve Spinal Injury Foundation has been able to raise tremendous amounts of money both before and after his death in the aid of finding a cure.

I'm not a religious man, but what if there is an afterlife, and what if he does get to see the respect that people give him, even though he's dead? And do you think that people in his family, if they do find out about this, are in some way going to feel bad or even not feel better to find out that a large group of people want to pay their respects to their recently lost family member? Unless he ended up bitter at having been remembered as Superman, there's no reason why his family shouldn't appreciate this.

Also, there's no reason why they can't both honor him and donate to his foundation.

Let the man have his legacy, and let people remember him for both his work to cure spinal cord injuries and for the pleasure he brought them, letting people know that it's okay to be a good guy and a super hero.

=Brian

These 4 words can be thrown randomly into article text trolls, into sigs, into anything, and once seen, WILL FORCE THE VICTIM TO TAKE CARE OF HIS BREATHING MANUALLY!

Holy crap, thanks a lot! I had forgotten breathing for several minutes and nearly died. Reading your troll saved my life!

Loves,
Chris

• 
  
• Soft pretzels. 20% discount. Hurry. 648215
• Of course size matters. Add inches to your nuclear missiles. 51954
• URGENT BUSINESS ASSISTANCE
• Lonely and bored interns! Live cameras! 21625
• Get rich working from home. 18242
• Stop the war! Hell, no we won't go
• Thanks for signing the card
• TALIBAN SINGLES
• [Slashdot] Moderation results

Christopher Reeve is trying to raise money for research that could help people walk and breathe on their own again. (If you go to the link, you can send a e-card to Chris Reeve and an anonymous donor will donate a dollar to in your name to Reeve's Foundation, which will, in turn, give that money out as research grants. It's Snopes approved.)

My point isn't to be simplistic and say that every dollar you own should be given away to charitable causes -- obviously, it takes a saint to live that way. But $20 grand for a motion simulator for your HOME theater? Seems like distorted priorities to me.

This is the Christopher Reeve site where you get to send an e-card. As everybody I'm sure remembers, he promised that he'd walk before he was fifty. Well, that's coming up fast (the 25th, i think) and he can walk- but only underwater, where he doesn't have to carry his full weight. In the meantime, there's this: for every ecard sent, there's a dollar promised to the foundation he started.

If there's one thing that I love better than charity, it's charity with someone else's money.

Christopher Reeve, the previous movies' Superman has managed to regain sensation below the neck and can now move his right wrist to some degree.

Doctors aren't sure exactly why, but think it might have to do with the constant excercise regime that Mr. Reeve went on shortly after the accident.

The strength of will required for Mr. Reeve to be able to accomplish this after all these years is simply remarkable. Some casting agent knew what he was doing when they chose Christopher for the Superman role.