Strapped into a pair of electronic legs and strolling across a lobby, Amanda Boxtel can’t stop beaming.
Euphoric, she describes it, to walk upright inside the bionic legs after 19 years in a wheelchair.
Making the impossible possible, she calls it, describing the joy of hugging her mother chest-to-chest nearly two decades after a Snowmass ski accident left her legs immobile.
So cool, she explains, to glide into a grocery store and reach for the half-and-half on a top shelf without any help.
Such is the tantalizing promise of the “e-legs” Boxtel demonstrated at Craig Hospital on Friday, in an advance for paraplegics’ mobility that medical officials call historic.
Craig is one of 10 top rehab hospitals in the nation testing the Berkeley Bionics creation with patients. For the right patient, the computer-controlled leg braces, or “exoskeleton,” allows them to stand up from a wheelchair and literally walk away, even though they remain paralyzed.
A processor on a backpack takes motion-sensor information from canes and the patient’s arms and chest to determine the intended path; motors in the joints move the legs in that direction.
Boxtel, 43, calls the legs a revelation after nearly half a lifetime of “looking up at chins.” No matter how mobile wheelchair patients have become in recent decades, she said, they dream of returning to the stand-up world that lies just out of reach.
“We’re in a vertical world, why not think out of the box?” said Boxtel, who lives in Aspen and has trained to demonstrate the legs for Berkeley for the past year. She estimates it took about 12 hours of practice before she was able to “go off the tether” and be fully independent with the device.
From the moment she had seen the moving braces, she said, “it just yelled freedom.”
Boxtel’s mother, Jill, on a visit from their Australian home, said that no matter how capable Amanda became in paraplegic skiing, dancing or cycling, seeing her walk with the legs was a dimensional leap.
“I cried my eyes out,” Jill Boxtel said.
Berkeley estimates 69 million people worldwide are in a wheelchair with some form of paralysis. The e-legs will not be commercially available for at least two years, while rehab centers test it and the company works to refine the motion and bring down the price.
Cost will be a question, Craig officials acknowledged. Berkeley sells a special model to hospitals for more than $100,000; initial price of a commercial version might be $50,000 to $60,000. The company will work to get that number closer to the price of high-end motorized wheelchairs at $20,000 to $30,000, said chief executive Eythor Bender.
Insurance companies reimburse patients for many expensive prosthetic devices, Bender said, and the company hopes the e-legs will be treated the same. Initial research funding came from military sources looking for ways to carry heavier loads to remote areas.
“We have high hopes — it will take some additional hard work,” said Dr. Dan Lammertse, medical director of research at Craig.
Craig spent the past week working with six patients in training for the e-legs. Patient movements are first controlled by a therapist with a remote control; once they gain strength and agility, patients can gain direct control.
The hospital will continue using the model both for rehabilitation on current patients and to work with Berkeley on design and function.
Boxtel said her plan is to continue using the legs every time they let her, saying she “never gets enough” of the feeling.
“It’s the first time I can say to my dog, ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ and mean it,” she said.
Michael Booth: 303-954-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com
