By Elaine Sanchez
Brooke Army Medical Center
JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas, July 10,
2014 – After a decade of excruciating pain, Frank Larraza figured he’d never be
able to walk pain-free again.
But in a month’s time, this 24-year Army veteran has gone
from crawling to walking to running.
“It’s an amazing feeling to just stand upright again without
pain,” Larraza said in an interview at the Center for the Intrepid, Brooke Army
Medical Center’s outpatient rehabilitation center here. “I feel like I’ve been
given a rebirth.”
Larraza is back on his feet again, thanks to the Intrepid
Dynamic Exoskeletal Orthosis, or IDEO, a lightweight, carbon-fiber device that
delivers nearly instantaneous results. A CFI team created the IDEO about five
years ago to increase mobility and decrease pain for wounded service members
with lower leg injuries, explained Johnny Owens, CFI’s Chief, Human Performance
Optimization Program.
Many of these patients had been opting for delayed
amputations rather than face long recoveries with potentially limited function
at the outcome. “We felt there was value to keeping a leg and value to having a
prosthetic,” Owens said. “So, we created an exoskeleton based off of the same
principles as a running leg for amputees.”
After a decade of pain, Larraza had entertained the thought
of amputation on more than one occasion. His right foot had been injured by
embedded glass during a soccer game, and he had unknowingly fractured his left
foot, but continued to run on both for years. These injuries, compounded by
multiple surgeries, worsened over the years and left Larraza frustrated, unable
to work, and in severe pain.
A few weeks earlier, Larraza had been in such agonizing pain
when he walked, he’d drop to his hands and knees at home and crawl. “I
developed callouses on my knees and elbows,” he said. “That was the way I would
move around the house, crawling like an animal.”
With no viable options in sight, he asked his doctors to
amputate.
“They wouldn’t do it,” he said. “But I was in so much pain,
I told my wife I was going to get dry ice and a couple of buckets and freeze my
feet to the point where they weren’t salvageable so they’d have to cut them
off.”
Sensing his desperation, his brother-in-law suggested
Larraza look into the IDEO program at the CFI, which was just a few hours’
drive from his home in Arlington, Texas. The device, he’d heard, was enabling
service members in severe pain to walk and even run again.
Larraza limped into the CFI on crutches, overweight from
years of inactivity, and grimacing from the pain, Owens recalled. “It was a
heartbreaking story for us; he was so many years out from injury,” he said.
“But at the same time, we felt confident the IDEO would help him.”
Over the past five years, Owens has seen the IDEO transform
hundreds of lives. Service members who limped in with severe extremity wounds
from IED blasts could walk virtually pain free in minutes, and run within days.
For many warriors, it was the first time they’d walked without pain in years.
“It takes a person who is disabled to being able to run
within a week in most cases,” he said. “It’s the biggest game changer I’ve ever
seen.”
Today, more than 600 service members are wearing IDEOs,
Owens said, citing a study that says 50 percent of these troops were able to
maintain their active duty status.
The CFI staff had Larraza try out two IDEO molds first to
test their effectiveness. “I took a few steps down the hall, turned around, and
after a couple of trips was walking normally,” he recalled. “Just being able to
stand up without a cane was amazing.”
When he later saw a video of those first steps, “I got teary
eyed,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it; it was like there was nothing wrong
with me.”
Taking a holistic approach, the CFI gave Larraza classes on
nutrition and fitness, and sports psychology to manage his sleep skills and
goal setting. In a month he dropped 20 pounds and began to run, an activity his
wife and 16-year-old son were hard-pressed to believe.
During a visit home, he decided a demonstration was in
order. “I sprinted down the street and back,” he said. “My wife was in tears.
“I went from crawling to walking to running again in a
matter of days,” he added. “It was absolutely amazing.”
Owens said he hopes success stories like Larraza’s will one
day become the norm, adding that efforts are underway to move the IDEO to the
civilian sector. The CFI is also working to spread the word that the IDEO is
available not just for combat wounded, but also for all military beneficiaries
who have sustained a wide range of sports and accident-related injuries.
“There are people like Frank all over the country, the
world, suffering from injuries … children who are born unable to run,” he said.
“The IDEO could make a huge difference in their quality of life.”
As for Larraza, the sky is the limit, Owens said.
Larraza agrees. “Life before the IDEO program was terrible,”
he said. “Now, I see myself doing just about anything. But first, I want to
spend some time with my 3-year-old granddaughter.
“Being able to enjoy life with her… it’s the ultimate
satisfaction,” Larraza added.
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