Recovery from spinal cord injury achieved by 3 months of coordination dynamic therapy

Coordination dynamic therapy was applied to 18 patients (average age 31 years) after a spinal cord injury between C4/5 and L4/5; the therapy was administered on average 5 years after the injury for a minimum of 3 months. All complete spinal cord lesions became incomplete, i.e. motor functions improved below the lesion level, including trunk stability and arm, hand and leg functions. The organization of the CNS, quantified by the coordination dynamics between arm and leg movements, improved by 42% for forward and by 49% for backward moving when exercising on a special coordination dynamic therapy device. The improvements of the coordination dynamics were 53%, 32% and 48% for lesions in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar range, respectively. The plasticity for spinal cord lesions was thus higher when the intumescence was lesioned. Since the coordination dynamics did not change substantially prior to coordination dynamic therapy, did further improve with continued therapy, and worsened when the therapy was terminated, it is concluded that the improvement of CNS functioning above and below the spinal cord lesion level was due to the therapy. Since in stroke and traumatic brain lesion the CNS functioning further improved if the therapy was continued over longer time periods beyond 3 months, it is suggested that spinal cord lesions can partly be cured if coordination dynamic therapy is administered for 1 to 2 years.