New Therapy Helping Blakely Girl Beat Spinal Cord Injury
By Jane H. McLendon

It was four years ago in November that a tragic accident occurred when beautiful Sutton Howell, a twenty-year-old junior at Auburn University, was headed home for Thanksgiving break and lost control of her red convertible. She flipped over and over until the momentum of the car was spent. It took the Jaws of Life to extract her from the vehicle, along with the kitten traveling with her. She was only five miles from her hometown of Blakely, GA, when it happened.

In the days that followed in Southeast Alabama Medical Center in Dothan, family and friends agonized over the uncertainty of each diagnostic report. Was there brain damage? Would she ever breathe off of the respirator? Was her spinal cord severed?

Thankfully, there were positive answers to some of the questions. Sutton is as bright mentally as before the wreck. However, she was diagnosed with a complete C-6 spinal cord injury, which meant that she had lost all feeling and movement from the chest down. Since the diagnosis was a complete C-6 (low cervical) spinal cord injury, her family was told that she would not get any movement back from the chest down. One lung was partially collapsed, so doctors predicted that she would not breathe on her own again.

Life as they knew it was shattered in that accident for Sutton, her parents, Alex and Mary Howell, and her brother, Jefferson, but what has unfolded in their lives since November, 1999 has evolved into a story of courage and faith.

As the Howells began to adjust to the shock of the tragedy, they began trying to deal with the future. Sutton’s parents were determined to explore every possibility of healing for their daughter. A former basketball player for Auburn University, Alex Howell was no stranger to physical fitness, and as a graduate of the University of Alabama School of Dentistry, he was aware of the abilities of the human body to heal. Alex and Mary Howell had faith that with the right therapy Sutton could regain use of her legs.

After Sutton was stabilized at the Medical Center in Dothan, her doctors transferred her to Shepherd Center in Atlanta, where she was placed in an intensive care unit for 3-4 weeks until she was weaned off the respirator and could breathe on her own. She received rehabilitation therapy there for the next 4 months.

At home that summer, Sutton suffered from a low body temperature, which is typical of patients with spinal cord injuries, so her parents took her to the hot springs in Cottonwood, AL, where they met a couple who were massage therapists from Tallahassee, FL. The couple told them about a relatively new type of therapy, Integrative Manual Therapy, and about a therapist in Tallahassee who was trained in the new technology.

Following this lead, the Howells put Sutton under the care of the therapist in Tallahassee for several months. The therapist worked with Sutton as far as her level of training in Integrative Manual Therapy allowed, then suggested that the Howells go to an Integrative Manual Therapy Center in Albuquerque, NM, where she had received her training.

Sutton went to Albuquerque to the therapy center in March 2001, where she was evaluated and given her treatment plan. The treatment plan is ongoing at the Center for Integrative Manual Therapy in Fayetteville, GA.

Based in Bloomfield, CT, the Center for Integrative Manual Therapy, the developer and provider of the unusual form of therapy called Integrative Manual Therapy, offers its care and services at a growing number of locations around the world. Integrative Manual Therapy has yielded impressive results in returning the body to optimal health.

The therapy, which is totally non-invasive and medication-free, uses the simplest of tools, the human hand to support the body’s incredible self-healing capacity. Based on the capacity of the body to heal itself, Integrative Manual Therapy has yielded dramatic results for people experiencing a vast array of ailments.

The Integrative Manual Therapy philosophy of healing includes the belief that an illness often manifests from several events that cause physical problems on many levels. A dysfunction can mask another until cleared during Integrative Manual Therapy treatment. Practitioners continually refer to the Integrative Diagnostic process so they can assess and treat newly revealed layers of dysfunction.

During the first evaluation, patients are assessed with Integrative Diagnostics. Then, a rehabilitation program is planned using Integrative Manual Therapy. Clinicians use traditional as well as specialized diagnostics to pinpoint areas of primary dysfunction in the body that are causing or contributing to the patient’s problems.

Myofascial Mapping, a process of determining the primary areas in the body that have physical dysfunction, is the most important diagnostic tool used on patients. The Mapping can be used like a geography map of dysfunction in the body since the areas of the body that have dysfunction are listed on a body diagram.

Spinal cord injuries have received national and international focus since Christopher Reeves was injured. Unfortunately, the recovery rates are bleak and predictors of outcomes show that persons with complete spinal cord injury diagnoses have little hope of progress following one year after the date of injury. A specific Recovery Program utilizing the Integrative Manual Therapy (IMT) for Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is gaining excellent functional gains with this population.

Sutton Howell has been in the IMT SCI Recovery Program, named FIRST STEP, for two and a half years. She is now doing things she was told that she would never be doing. Sutton benches presses 70 pounds and transfers herself in and out of her wheelchair independently. In a gait trainer (a device similar to an infant walker, only adult size) and with leg bracing on, Sutton walks independently all directions; forwards, backwards and sideways. Sutton has begun locking and unlocking her knees and is now training with forearm crutches!

CenterIMT Atlanta began the Integrative Manual Therapy (IMT) Spinal Cord (SCI) Recovery Program in 2001. The name for this remarkable program is FIRST STEP. Through FIRST STEP, persons with complete SCI, as well as incomplete SCI, of all levels, are making significant functional progress well past traditional predictors of outcome. Sue Leger, MS, PT, IMP,C, the Director of FIRST STEP, is currently writing up her Doctoral research documenting six complete SCI persons, each making tremendous strides in sensation and function. One of the six subjects in Ms. Leger's research is Sutton Howell.

Ms. Leger, completing her PhD in Integrative Manual Diagnostics as a Neuroscience Specialist, explains that IMT is a hands-on approach focused on repairing the tissue and recovering the anatomy and physiology of the body. "Structural integrity is necessary for functional capacity to return. This simply means that for a person to sit, balance, transfer, stand and walk, the body's anatomy and physiology must be repaired."

IMT was developed by Dr. Sharon (Weiselfish) Giammatteo, PhD, PT, IMP,C over thirty years of research and clinical trials. The therapy skills necessary to complete the IMT SCI Recovery Program are not common knowledge and require extensive training. The Connecticut School of Integrative Manual Therapy (CSIMT) is a private occupational school, authorized by the Connecticut State Department of Higher Education. It is the only school in the country that offers exclusive training in IMT. Graduates of this program receive a diploma in IMT and then have the opportunity to further their knowledge by pursuing a certification in IMT. Graduates from CSIMT may go on to earn a higher degree through Westbrook University, offering Bachelor, Master and Doctorate degrees in Integrative Manual Therapy.

Sue Leger describes FIRST STEP as the first SCI program of its kind in the world. FIRST STEP has four phases that a person progresses through. Phase One, with its full structural hands-on focus, is where recovery begins. Phase One emphasizes reversing spinal shock, spinal cord edema, spinal cord fibrosis and opening the flow within the cord. All added medical concerns are addressed during this phase. Phase Two begins when a person has spinal cord and muscle motility. This second phase expands the structural IMT with a functional component. The functional IMT is diagnostically driven to reveal structural integrity problem areas for correction. Phase Three begins once full spinal and muscle rhythm is established and the hard frame biomechanics are addressed. Sue Leger reports that clients in Phase Three are taking steps and progressing towards independence. Sutton Howell took six months in FIRST STEP to begin taking her first steps. Now Sutton has advanced through IMT SCI Recovery Program to Phase Four which continues the IMT structural emphasis, with the addition of a strong exercise component. Sutton's recovery has been continual with her newest ability of independently locking and unlocking her knees when she is standing in the gait trainer.

Sutton goes to the Center for Integrative Manual Therapy in Fayetteville, Georgia every two or three weeks for 2-3 days of therapy. She is on a Six Weeks On/Six Weeks Off program.

During the Six Weeks On period of therapy, Sutton is on a rigorous schedule of exercises. After three days of therapy at the Center in Fayetteville, Sutton comes home and works six hours a day for six days a week for six weeks to strengthen the muscles that are returning from the therapy she has received at the Center. She lifts weights, walks in a gait-trainer, and swims for hours in a pool in the warm weather. Her regimen includes exercises designed to strengthen muscles that have atrophied in her legs, torso, and hands.

During the Six Weeks Off period of therapy, Sutton exercises 1-2 hours a day for maintenance of muscle strength, but she essentially lets her body rest.

Through her dedicated work under the direction of the Integrative Manual Therapy program, Sutton Howell now practices walking with the help of forearm crutches and knee braces. After her wreck in 1999 she could not move, nor feel from the chest down.

Where does she find the strength and determination to work so hard in hopes of getting well? She says that her whole family has depended on the Lord’s Word for healing. They have trusted completely in the Lord.

In thinking about the days following the accident, Alex Howell remembers what it was like to face a crisis like this. He believes that you must be grounded in faith and not fear and desperation. The bottom line, he believes, is that unbelief always reaches its goal.

In contrast, Dr. Howell continues, nothing is impossible for God and for those who believe in Him. Passionate faith in God and His promises are the source of the Howell family’s strength.

“I found in God’s Word the promises that were promised to those who believe, and they are the promises that drive me, he says. I look to those promises and to nothing that will distract from those promises, whether it is people or circumstances.”

For information on Integrative Manual Therapy, visit the Center’s website at www.CenterIMT.com.