Background
Fundashon Alton Paas was established on September 7, 2012 with the specific aim to raise awareness of spinal cord injuries and other neurological problems and to promote a better quality of life for people with spinal cord injuries and other physical disabilities.
The foundation seeks to accomplish its objectives by providing information on the subject, by contributing to the development of the necessary legal arrangements, by contributing to the development of a national policy on the treatment of spinal cord injury and aftercare and by developing a facility for providing intensive activity-based therapy.
Dr. L. Gutman had described spinal cord injury as one of the greater calamities that can befall humans.
Gerhart KA, Koziol-McLain J, Lowenstein SR, Whiteneck GG show us in their paper ‘Quality of life following spinal cord injury; Knowledge and attitudes of emergency care providers’ that paralysis, bladder and bowel dysfunction, dependence on others, mobility limitations and high risks of complications (such as pressure ulcers) that a spinal cord injury entails, forced most people to live this way and they cannot see anything but a life of low quality and conclude that they would rather be dead.
Susan J. Harkema, PH.D., director of the Reeve Foundation Neuro Recovery Network, professor of neurosurgery and rehabilitation at the University of Louisville, and research director of the University of Kentucky’s Spinal Cord Research Center and Frazier Rehab Institute said during an interview that research has shown that in relationship with spinal cord injury, or any neurologic disorder, recovery doesn’t stop one year after injury. People who had been a decade, two decades in a wheelchair had recovered their ability to walk.
Research and also Project Walk own client success over the last decade have shown that SCI patients have the potential to improve function below the level of injury in the nervous system.
That’s why we have the director of research and development of Project Walk here on the island to give more information on the development for spinal cord injury recovery.
Fundraising Gala Dinner
The focus of this event is:
- To raise fund for the first project of the foundation
- To give information about intense exercised-based therapy after spinal cord injury.
Program
- 18:30 – 19:00 Pre-dinner hour
- Reception of guests in the conference room. They will receive a welcome drink and background music
- 19:00 – 19:15 Opening MC
- MC introduces the foundation
- Speech Chairman Fundashon Alton Paas
- 19:15 – 19:45 Keynote speech Mr Eric Harness Activity based recovery
- 19:45 – 19:55 Client Service Manager Mrs Gigi Betancourt Info about Project Walk
- 20:00 – 21:00 Dinner with live music by Perfect Four
- 21:00 – 22:00 Comedy by Finchi Statia, Door prize, Dance show by KREA DANZA and closing words of thanks by Alton Paas, Jurvis Lourens and Steven Cristina
Keynote Speaker
Eric Harness graduated from San Diego State University in 1997 with a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology with an emphasis in Athletic Training and a Minor in Psychology. He then received a post-graduate certification as a Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
Eric Harness is now the Director of Research and Development for Project Walk and a Level III Certified Spinal Cord Injury Recovery Specialist. In 2006 he began collaborating with the University of California, Irvine and California State University San Marcos on multiple research projects focusing on the Project Walk program and spinal cord injuries. His first paper arising out of these collaborations was published in 2008. He has now published multiple papers in peer-reviewed journals. Eric has also worked with manufacturers and independent engineers to design unique equipment for the benefit of Project Walk’s clients. In the past 11 years, he developed many of the exercise techniques used with their clients, he was responsible for developing the Home Program, he designed a new evaluation scale (Developmental Activity Scale™ or DAS), and he built the database Project Walk uses to track client’s workouts.