The Role of Exercise and Rehabilitation in Non-Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury
June 16, 2014
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About Our Guest Speakers
Daniel Becker, MD
Director & Founder, International Neurorehabilitation Institute
A board-certified neurologist, spinal cord injury medicine specialist and disability analyst, Dr. Becker is the former director of the Pediatric Spinal Cord Injury Unit at the International Center for Spinal Cord Injury at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. After earning his medical degree from Ruprecht Karls University in Heidelberg, Germany, Dr. Becker completed his residency training at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, followed by a fellowship in spinal cord injury medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He is currently part of the Johns Hopkins Neurophysiology Intraoperative Monitoring Division and an assistant professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Becker is also a member of the American Academy of Neurology, as well as a world-renowned expert in the treatment of transverse myelitis.
Melanie Farrar, PT, DPT
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, School of Health Professions and Children’s Medical Center, Dallas, TX
Dr. Farrar graduated from physical therapy school with a doctor of physical therapy degree at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She spent the following year as the neurologic physical therapy resident at UT Southwestern where she specialized in treating gait disorders in individuals with neurologic injuries and disease. Since completion of the residency, she works as a clinician in the Gait Disorders Clinic in the Department of Physical Therapy at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She serves as the physical therapist in the Total Life Care Clinic at the UT Southwestern MS Center and in the Demyelinating Disease Clinic at Children’s Medical Center, both in Dallas, Texas. Her research focus is on the impact of lower extremity bracing in individuals with MS. She is also on faculty as a clinical instructor at the UT Southwestern Physical Therapy Program in the School of Health Professions.
Kathleen Zackowski, PhD
Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins Department of Rehabilitation, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD
Dr. Zackowski is certified as a Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Specialist and works as the sole Occupational Therapist at the Johns Hopkins MS Center. Dr. Zackowski’s research interests are to investigate the mechanisms that underlie sensorimotor impairments and disability resulting from damage to the central nervous system so as to improve disability. To this point her studies have focused on the motor control problems that occur as a result of neurodegenerative disease processes such as multiple sclerosis and adrenomyeloneuropathy. She is developing a model using advanced neuro-imaging in combination with quantitative impairment measures to understand pathologically relevant structure-function relationships. Dr. Zackowski’s current studies investigate the extent that nerve fiber changes in the brain and spinal cord are associated with changes in walking and physical impairments such as strength and sensation. This type of model is critical for tracking disease progression and evaluating rehabilitative and pharmacologic treatments for people with neurodegenerative diseases.
