Journey-Forward

Journey Forward

Bettering Lives of Those with Spinal Chord InjuriesJourney Forward is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to bettering the lives of those who have suffered a Spinal Cord Injury through an intense exercise program. Exercise is important to everyone and even more so to those who have suffered a Spinal Cord Injury.Journey Forward is an exercise based program designed to assist those with Spinal Cord Injuries so they too can achieve some of these most basic lifelong functions and benefits. We are focused on making our program accessible to those who need it as much as possible and are working on opening many locations across the country.Journey Forward works with Spinal Cord Injured clients of all levels and abilities in a very active and full body approach. This is what separates Journey Forward from many other adaptive gyms. Many of the gyms that center on working with individuals with disabilities tend to focus only on the clients abilities and don't work with the affected areas. We at Journey Forward focus on the clients weaknesses and work on coordinating the entire body in a very functional and complete style. Our clients will work on many different activities including gait training, load bearing, and full body neural stimulation. Working with individuals with Spinal Cord Injuries in this aggressive and functional manner has shown many benefits. We are able to focus on client goals that can range from regaining lost function to simply receiving the normal benefits of exercise. Since this injury forces most to be in a chair for the majority of the day; we want to get them out of their chairs and focus on functional exercises and activities.

The Journey forward Program

Dynamic Neural Stimulation:

This is one of the most important aspects to regaining function. We focus on stimulating the client's nervous system through different movements. This is where our staff is trained to assist the client's nervous system and assist them in completing movements. After repetitions over time the nervous system will begin to adapt to this stimulus.

Load Bearing:

Getting into the load bearing positions is a key aspect of recovery. This allows the nervous system to experience the stress of bearing the body's weight. This has been shown to have positive benefits including improved bone density, greater stress on the muscles, and an increase in nervous system adaptations.

Vibration Training:

Vibration training allows even greater demand to be forced on the body. Many will experience an increase in sensation and function when performing activities while vibration training. Vibration training will also incorporate aspects of load bearing and has also shown many of the same benefits.

Gait Training:

Gait Training is learning the correct patterns needed to take steps. This ambulatory training is done at many different levels and is adjusted to the client's abilities and gains recovery. Gait training can be done passively, actively, and assisted.

FES (Functional Electrical Stimulation):

FES is a rehabilitation technique whereby electrical current stimulates nerves to evoke muscle contractions. FES creates patterned movement of the legs, enabling the muscles to work and perform active cycling and increase muscle mass.

View client stories from Journey Forward.

Journey Forward - Bettering the Lives of those with Spinal Cord Injuries - 501 (c)(3) Nonprofit

GIVE-BACK Coordinator: Sheila White-Sheehan, Office Manager

Journey Forward

www.journey-forward.org

email: sheila@journey-forward.org | www.journey-forward.org

Toll Free: 866.680.5636 | Main: 781.828.3233 | Fax: 781.828.4777