I was told by my surgeons after a life-altering car accident that I had unreasonable, unreachable and unrealistic expectations. 

I am a Black Belt in Kung Fu, WuShu and Escrima. I began my martial arts training at the age of twelve with Bill Underwood.  In my early twenties I started training at Master Wong and Sifu K's Dojo. Master Wong was a Doctor of Chinese Medicine and a Master of the Qigong fighting arts.  Because of my training with Master Wong, I understood the importance of kinetic chain alignment, The SAID Principle, The Principle of Reversibility, Wolff's Law and Davis's Law and how those Laws and Principles determine how much core strength, balance and alignment your body maintains as you grow and age and how to develop a plan to regain it after an injury. 

In adult martial arts there is always a Plan. That Plan is what allows you to start as a White Belt and after six to nine years  depending on the Style and thousands of hours of classes learning how to breakdown, rebuild and reconnect movement and motion until it flows with speed, accuracy and precision you become a Black Belt. One of the first things I learned in martial arts was that you're only as good as your training and that if your training is lacking then so are you. When it came to  movement, motion, kinetic chain alignment and my understanding of anatomy and biomechanics,  along with my  martial arts training, I was not lacking.  I knew that if  the right surgeons put my body back together I would be able to start at the weakest point in my body and create a step-by step Rehab Plan that would let me reach my unreasonable, unrealistic  and unreachable expectations. 

 Practice does not make perfect  or improve physical ability and core strength unless the quality of the quantity practiced maintains or helps regain the body's core strength and kinetic chain alignment.  A body that maintains balance without maintaining alignment and engaging the body's core muscles like you're forced to do when using traditional canes, crutches, walkers and wheelchairs will become weaker and more unstable over time.  

 Any new motor behavior that affects the way you walk and how your body is aligned, moved and positioned starts forming new neural motor pathways in the brain in as little as three weeks. At one month you start to feel the change and at four months the new motor pathway good or bad, will rewire the brain making the new motor behavior good or bad automatic. In other words, you are the way you walk. If you walk looking down in front of your feet the way some old people do or the way traditional mobility devices, canes, crutches, walking sticks and walkers/Rollators  force you to walk to maintain balance  your core muscles around the top of your spine, the front of your chest and under your shoulder blades that keep your body upright and stable as you walk will become weaker. Your step and stride will become smaller and less stable and you will become more and more bent over with time. 

When I started relearning how to walk without crutches on April 1st, of 2015, my left leg was bent, twisted and an inch longer than my right but my left heel didn't touch the ground when I walked, stood or was on the stairs. This was not the result of the car accident. It was the result of the secondary disability caused  from the way the crutches forced my body to be aligned, moved and positioned during the three and a half months that I used crutches with my leg bent and my foot off the ground. 

After my surgeries and procedures, I would complain to my physician husband nightly that the crutches, leg brace and other mobility devices were bankrupting the opportunity that my surgeons had given me. I would tell my husband almost daily that traditional crutch  feet made a poor foot substitute because they weren't proportioned or designed to move or pivot or maintain balance, stability, upright posture from the back of the crutch foot to the front of the crutch foot like a foot. That because of the way the crutches misaligned, moved and positioned my head, neck and the rest  of my body to maintain balance they were creating injury and secondary physical disability unrelated to the car accident  with each step that I or anyone else using them took. The only difference between the injuries I sustained in the car accident and the ones I received using traditional mobility devices for two years after the car accident was the speed with which they were delivered.

I briefly used traditional canes and walking sticks after I started relearning how to walk. I would complain to my husband  that no one had ever developed,  maintained or regained an upright, stable heel to toe walking gait that engages and strengthens the body's core muscles by continuously forcing their spine and the rest of their body to be misaligned, moved and positioned  in the ways that traditional canes, crutches, walking sticks and walkers force the body to be misaligned, moved and positioned. I would tell him that if a walking cane stood up straight  by itself, but wouldn't let you stand up straight with your head upright, aligned and centered over your shoulders. Your feet contacting the ground from heel to toe  then your core muscles would become weaker and your body would become more misaligned, bent and unstable with time.

 When I told my husband after I started relearning how to walk that my surgeon had told me that I would never walk upright or normally again.  He asked me what I had said to him? I told him that I said, I wasn't born walking, and I wasn't born a Black Belt. My husband said you know more about human biomechanics and  how the body needs to be aligned,  moved and positioned  to maintain or regain alignment, upright posture and strong core muscles then I do and I'm a Harvard-MIT trained physician.  Because of your martial arts and Qigong training you understand how to break down, rebuild and reconnect movement and motion until it flows with accuracy and precision. You can map any movement from its weakest point that doesn't maintain alignment and neuromuscular control. You developed a 13 Step Rehab Plan based on your martial arts training and understanding of anatomy and biomechanics that allowed you to regain one hundred percent of your former range and mobility in your left arm and shoulder and a pain free spine despite the severity of your shoulder and spine injuries.  Every surgeon we consulted along with your physical therapists told us that it was impossible to regain your former range and mobility in your left arm and shoulder. That the best you or anyone else could hope for was somewhere between forty and eighty percent of your former range and mobility in your shoulder and arm. That you would never have muscle again in your left upper arm or a pain free spine.  You have one-hundred percent of your former range and mobility in your shoulder.  A pain free spine, a pain free shoulder and muscle again in your left upper arm. Stop complaining about the crutches, canes, walkers and walking sticks and use your  training and understanding of anatomy and human biomechanics as well as your ability to conceptualize and map the body's movement and motion and build  a new kind of  mobility devices. Ones that can help you and other people regain, maintain or develop kinetic chain alignment  and a heel to toe walking gait.

I spent hours studying a skeletal foot before I build the first 3rd Foot Cane and Crutch foot for myself. Unlike traditional cane, crutch, walking stick tips and rocker feet  that are small and flat on the bottom and don't move or pivot or maintain balance or a heel to toe walking gait  like a foot.  I built the 3rd Foot Crutch and Cane foot proportioned like a human foot not a tip or a rocker foot. I put ridges on the bottom of the crutch and cane foot like the ridges found on the bottom of the metatarsals and phalanges that maintain weight-bearing and balance when walking, backing up and turning.  The 3rd Foot Cane and Crutch foot move, pivot and maintain balance and a heel to toe walking gait like a foot and not a tip or rocker foot. The 13 Step Rehab Plan and the exercises that I created from my martial arts and Qigong training along with the 3rd Foot Cane and Crutch foot allowed me to regain a heel to toe walking gait and my body's kinetic chain alignment. Letting me reach my unreasonable, unreachable and unrealistic expectations and walk upright and without a cane. After my first two Utility Patents were issued I spent a year interviewing wheelchair users at hospitals. I studied the medical literature on lower limb immobility.  Then I used what I had learned from wheelchair users, the medical literature and my anatomy and biomechanics textbooks to design  a wheelchair solution. The AAD Wheelchair is designed and Patented on a simple but powerful idea; that wheelchairs should activate movement of the lower limbs and dorsal and plantar flexion in the feet of wheelchair users who have none. 

In 2021 I was included in Think and Zoom Future of Disability-Global List of Disabled  Innovators.  AAD has been granted 7 Utility Patents and two Design Patents for rehabilitation-oriented mobility devices that I invented. 

Mobility impacts the way we see the World and the way the world sees us. If we are not seen because of the pain and secondary disability caused by traditional mobility devices that limit what we can do and how long we can do it for then  we are not heard. The future of mobility is not in helping people move better. It is in helping people recover so they can lead more active and independent lives. 

The Aligned As Designed Wheelchair, The 3rd Foot Crutch and The 3rd Foot Cane were chosen as Portfolio Members of The West Coast Consortium For Technology And Innovation-CTIP. 

More than seven thousand 3rd Foot Canes have been sold Worldwide. Due to Tariffs we will not be ordering more 3rd Foot Cane Inventory at this time. AAD will be focusing on licensing The 3rd Foot Fabric Topped Crutch, The 3rd Foot Adaptable Crutch Foot, The AAD Walker/Rollator and The 3rd Foot Cane. As well as a Partnership for The Aligned As Designed Wheelchair. In the meantime I will be working on finishing the next generation of AAD hardware and software.