The Galveston Daily News from Galveston, Texas • Page 5

Monday Morning, June 13,1983 Qtye (ialueaton UallQ SJeiua 5-A Paralyzed student walks for diploma with computer aid DAYTON, Ohio (AP) Five years after an accident left her paralyzed, paraplegic Nan Davis rose from her wheelchair and walked 10 feet to receive her college diploma with a book-size computer telling her numbed legs what to do. "This is a special day for all of us," she said Saturday when she reached the podium at the University of Dayton Arena to receive her bachelor's degree in elementary education from Wright State University. "Thank you and congratulations," she told her 1,300 fellow graduates and the team who put her back on her feet. "The last time she walked in public was in high school, and she wanted to walk in her college graduation," said Dr. Jerrold Petrofsky.

He is executive director of Wright State's National Center for Rehabilitation Engineering and developer of the computer system that helped Miss Davis walk. Miss Davis was helped from her wheelchair by Petrofsky and co-worker Dr. Chandler Phillips. They held her arms to help her balance as her legs moved to the commands of the computer carried by Petrofsky. Miss Davis, of St.

Marys, Ohio, was a sprinter in high school and planned to run track in college. But on the night of her high school graduation a one-car traffic accident she was a passenger damaged her spine, ending communication between her brain and her legs. Last November, she became the first paraplegic in Petrofsky's research project to walk with the aid of computer-controlled electrical stimulation of muscles. "One small step for mankind," she said that day, evoking the memory of astronaut Neil Armstrong's description of his first step on the moon a small step for man, a giant leap for mankind. To make that first 10-foot walk she was suspended in a safety harness and held on to two steel rails to keep her balance.

Petrofsky said Miss Davis now can walk 50 to 60 feet using only canes for support. Her first computer-aided walk required a huge stationary computer that selectively activated small electrodes on her skin to make selected leg muscles contract. The computer she used at Saturday's commencement was about 4 inches by 6 inches and less than an inch thick. In Petrofsky's system, eight sensors on Miss Davis' body monitor her position and movement to tell the computer the position of her legs, so it knows which muscles to stimulate next to achieve coordinated movement. Up to 36 electrodes are placed on Miss Davis' leg muscles to force them to move.

Petrofsky credits private funding from such companies as NCR Corp. of Dayton and Armco Inc. of Middletown for speeding his research, which has so far enabled one other paraplegic and two quadriplegics to stand and participate in walking experiments. Ultimately, he hopes to surgically implant electrodes to enable such people to walk with the aid of a portable computer. OVERWEIGHT? Reduce untar Medical Ro Im urtoable 45th St.

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