Carla Alford never expected to see her husband walk again.
But Brenson Alford, a patient at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center uptown division, is in physical therapy – trying to walk.
When physical therapist Ebony Dillard saw Alford’s feet were too close together and turned into each other – a condition seen in other patients, she came up with a simple way to push the feet apart.
Magnets.
“He was not doing anything when he first came here. Not nothing, not getting off the chair, no, no balance, can’t walk and do anything,” said Carla Alford. “And his physical therapist Ebony came up here one morning to our therapy, and she’s going to try this on you. And the first thing I asked her, I said, ‘Where can I buy this at?’”
The answer was nowhere. Dillard had created a prototype to put on a patient’s shoes, much like the old-fashioned roller skates.
“We’re always coming up with ways to prevent our patients from falling,” she said. “So, we’re thinking maybe there’s a better way to prevent this without having to use three or four people to hold their legs apart when they walk. We created a device using magnets to prevent veterans from falling when they when they walk, because when they have weakness or neurological deficits, they cross their legs sometimes.”
Called the DEB, Device for gait, Efficiency, and Balance, Dillard worked with the physical therapy team at the VA to create multiple prototypes. Each prototype incorporated more of what she observed with the patient’s walk, including length of stride. She also used input from the veterans and family members.
“It seems like every month we had a new prototype until we, communicated with the Cleveland VA. They came up with the final prototype, based off of our progression,” she said. “From the beginning to where we are now, it’s been a collaborative effort, between innovations, our PT department and our tech transfer in Atlanta, and now, engineers in Cleveland, all associated with the VA.”
The VA’s Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning began in 2020 to develop original approaches and innovation to serve veterans’ needs. The Augusta VA is one of just 30 across the country with the innovation program. That community named Dillard’s work the top innovation project across the VA Southeast Network.
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“Right now, it’s not in its final phase; we still are doing a lot more iteration,” said innovation specialist Kelsey Shull. “Ebony was just accepted to the national VA innovation program for this next year, to continue receiving specialized support and training to continue developing it with the input of the veterans to make it the best it can possibly be.”
Dillard has been awarded a provisional patent. She hopes to begin a pilot program to share with VA medical centers nationwide. She estimates as many as 2,500 patients would benefit from the device.
Carla Alford is glad her husband is one of the five local veterans involved in the program.
“It takes a lot of stress and pressure off me and as a way to see him to be able to do something for himself and stop being dependent on me,” she said. “I’m going to be there regardless but it’s a blessing just to see him to this point where he at now.”
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a general assignment reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com
