The London Marathon is an annual marathon held in London, England. It is the second-largest annual road race in the UK, after the Great North Run in Newcastle. Founded by athletes Chris Brasher and John Disley in 1981, it is typically held in April, although it moved to October for 2020, 2021, and 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The largely flat course is set around the River Thames, starting in Blackheath and finishing at The Mall. Hugh Brasher is the current race director and Nick Bitel its chief executive.
Paraplegia, or paraparesis, is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek (παραπληγίη) "half-stricken". It is usually caused by spinal cord injury or a congenital condition that affects the neural (brain) elements of the spinal canal. The area of the spinal canal that is affected in paraplegia is either the thoracic, lumbar, or sacral regions. If four limbs are affected by paralysis, tetraplegia or quadriplegia is the correct term. If only one limb is affected, the correct term is monoplegia. Spastic paraplegia is a form of paraplegia defined by spasticity of the affected muscles, rather than flaccid paralysis.
ReWalk is a commercial bionic walking assistance system that uses powered leg attachments to enable paraplegics to stand upright, walk and climb stairs. The system is powered by a backpack battery, and is controlled by a simple wrist-mounted remote which detects and enhances the user's movements. Designed in Yokneam, Israel, by Amit Goffer, the ReWalk is marketed by ReWalk Robotics Ltd, and is priced at approximately US$85,000 per unit.
Margaret Maughan was a British competitive archer, dartcher and bowls competitor. She was Britain's first gold medallist at the Paralympic Games, and won four gold and two silver medals at the Games. She lit the cauldron at the Olympic Stadium in London at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics.
Philip Packer is a British charity activist who suffered serious injuries while serving with the British military in Iraq in 2008 and has since engaged in numerous publicised physical challenges in support of his charity, the British Inspiration Trust (BRIT), and other causes.
A powered exoskeleton is a mobile machine that is wearable over all or part of the human body, providing ergonomic structural support and powered by a system of electric motors, pneumatics, levers, hydraulics or a combination of cybernetic technologies, while allowing for sufficient limb movement with increased strength and endurance. The exoskeleton is designed to provide better mechanical load tolerance, and its control system aims to sense and synchronize with the user's intended motion and relay the signal to motors which manage the gears. The exoskeleton also protects the user's shoulder, waist, back and thigh against overload, and stabilizes movements when lifting and holding heavy items.
Clare Nott is an Australian 1.0 point wheelchair basketball player who plays for the Kilsyth Cobras in the Women's national Wheelchair Basketball League (WNWBL) and for the Red Dust Heelers in the mixed National Wheelchair basketball League (NWBL). She participated in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, where she won a bronze medal, and the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, where she won a silver medal.
Homayoon Kazerooni is an Iranian-born American roboticist, mechanical engineering, and professor. He serves as a professor of mechanical engineering, and the director of the Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Kazerooni is also the co-founder of Ekso Bionics and SuitX. As a noted authority on robotics, he is frequently profiled and quoted in the media.
Ekso Bionics Holdings Inc. is a company that develops and manufactures powered exoskeleton bionic devices that can be strapped on as wearable robots to enhance the strength, mobility, and endurance of industrial workers and people experiencing paralysis and mobility issues after a brain injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis (MS) or spinal cord injury. They enable individuals with any amount of lower extremity weakness, including those who are paralyzed, to stand up and walk.
Susan Davies is an Australian Paralympic archery medalist.
Sophie Morgan is a British television presenter and disability advocate who is paraplegic. She is a social media influencer. She became a presenter after appearing on reality television. In 2021, she was a lead presenter for Channel 4's TV coverage of the Summer Paralympics in Tokyo. She has been voted one of the most influential disabled people in the UK as part of the Shaw Trust's Disability Power 100. Morgan has been working on television for almost twenty years, following the first generation of disabled television presenters such as Ade Adepitan, Mik Scarlet, Tanni Grey-Thompson, Cerrie Burnell and Julie Fernandez.
Mary Puthisseril Verghese (1925–1986) was a physician in India who was among the earliest pioneers of Physical medicine and rehabilitation in the country. Mary Verghese was instilled in a home where love and respect were two main factors in their close knit family. She was caring of others and wanted to give back to her community in any way that she could. In 1963, she took charge of what was the first department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation with an inpatient facility in India at the Christian Medical College, Vellore. She was instrumental in expanding the services of the department with the establishment of the first inpatient rehabilitation institute of the country in 1966. In recognition of her contributions to the field of medicine, she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1972.
The Vanderbilt exoskeleton, marketed as Indego, is a powered exoskeleton designed by the Center for Intelligent Mechatronics at Vanderbilt University in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is intended to assist paraplegics, stroke victims and other paralyzed or semi-paralyzed people to walk independently. Motion and control technologies manufacturer Parker Hannifin is funding further development, and plans to release the first commercial version of the exoskeleton in 2015.
Dariusz "Darek" Fidyka is a Polish firefighter and recovering paraplegic who became the first person in history to verifiably recover sensory and motor function after the complete severing of his spinal cord.
Spinal cord injury research seeks new ways to cure or treat spinal cord injury in order to lessen the debilitating effects of the injury in the short or long term. There is no cure for SCI, and current treatments are mostly focused on spinal cord injury rehabilitation and management of the secondary effects of the condition. Two major areas of research include neuroprotection, ways to prevent damage to cells caused by biological processes that take place in the body after the injury, and neuroregeneration, regrowing or replacing damaged neural circuits.
Emma Booth is an Australian Paralympic equestrian. She represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics and the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
Jocelyne Bloch is a Swiss neuroscientist and a neurosurgeon at Lausanne University Hospital and at EPFL.
Ebbe Blichfeldt is a Danish wheelchair racer living in Switzerland who has competed internationally in the Paralympic Games and other parathletic events, in the T54 classification for athletes with spinal cord injuries who compete in wheelchairs. He also works as an occupational therapist.
Paula Craig MBE is a British former detective, cyclist, former runner, paratriathlete and aspiring Channel swimmer. After she became paraplegic she continued in her career rising to the rank of inspector. She competed in the London Marathon and took part in a relay swim of the English Channel.
Vivian K. Mushahwar is a Palestinian-Canadian biomedical engineer. She is a Canada Research Chair in Functional Restoration at the University of Alberta, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
