Determined2Heal Tips:

It’s up to you to educate those around you regarding your new injury, as well as educate yourself. Here’s some advice.

Click Here — Learn more about education post-SCI and watch thousands of SCI videos on SPINALpedia! 

Educating your Doctors and Therapists

Thinking outside the box is the problem with most doctors and therapists today. They’re stuck in the old philosophies which are ingrained into their minds from their textbooks. This is a major problem that needs to be overcome because as I see it, we are going to be writing our future.

In order to write our future we need to be creative enough to combine as many useful therapies as possible to jumpstart and tweak our spinal cord to function as it once did. Laser therapy, photochemical therapy, vibrational therapy, microcurrent therapy, alternative medicine, restorative therapy, stem cell therapy, and countless other therapies will need to be combined to repair the system.

Educating the Public

Now that Christopher Reeve is no longer here in body to fight this fight, it is up to us to bring a face back to the spinal cord injury world and continue his fight. He got us started down the right path and now it is our turn to finish his dream. We need to educate our communities and our legislators about the importance of stem cell research and certain bills like the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Act.

In our country’s history in order for change to occur, it took passionate dedication and time. The problem that I see today is that we are not dedicating our lives towards the cure and we’re just waiting around for it to occur naturally. We have to see this differently as a cause and effect. The more passionate we are and the more dedication we put towards giving the cure a chance, the quicker we will get better.

Educating Your Mind

The main factor that clearly distinguishes individuals in the spinal cord community is one’s mind. After my injury, I began to realize the complexity and beauty of the human body. The mind is such a powerful tool and remarkably it is so underutilized in today’s society.

Expanding and educating the mind distinguishes people in the spinal cord world. The spinal cord community will always be defined first by the injury or by the wheelchair. But the second thing the public recognizes is what comes out of our mouth. A good education provides an individual the necessary skills to become a productive member of society.