Father creates walking aid for his son

After several days in a coma, Ivo was diagnosed with quadriparesis, a condition of increasing, inevitable muscular weakness. Doctors decreed that the child would live the rest of his life in a wheelchair, unable to walk.

But Ivo’s father, Jorge, is a mechanic who runs his own auto repair shop in Buenos Aires. Instead of resigning himself to the idea that biology is destiny, Jorge used his expertise as a car mechanic to design and build a machine that would restore his son’s legs and arms.

Jorge Cardile never attended medical school, and his homemade rehabilitation machine was not built according to sophisticated blueprints from a research laboratory. But Jorge has intuition, a craftsman’s technical knowledge, and an ambitious imagination driven by love.

He built his first prototype in one month, from a bicycle and a pair of wooden planks. Then, the Argentinian father developed a hybrid walking machine, made from pieces of metal and a child-sized harness. Jorge’s Walking Stimulator, or Voelio, is claimed to be appropriate for all physical or mental conditions, such as various motor problems, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson's. It is made of several harnesses attached to a metal structure that suspends Ivo’s bodyweight and maintains a straight spine and corrective posture. Then, a sort of mash-up between a treadmill and an elliptical trainer helps Ivo to practice walking: lifting the feet, bending the knees and strengthening the muscles from the heels, passing through the ankles, up to the calves and thighs. Thanks to the exercises, Ivo can walk hand-in-hand with his father, one step at a time.
The Voelio is now available to other children, and it has even built a version for adults.

More info: www.voelio.com

Adapted from: http://bit.ly/2iVSMha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2dUNjf6RFc