Traditional mobility devices, canes, crutches, walking sticks and walkers let you maintain balance, but because they don't maintain your body's alignment or upright posture with your arms next to your side they don't engage your core muscles. The longer you use them the weaker your core muscles and the more bent over your body becomes. When your body maintains alignment as you move you engage your core muscles that maintain or help you regain upright posture, balance and stability.

In January of 2013 a SUV crashed into the driver's side door of my car. Over the next two years I would undergo multiple surgeries and procedures followed by eight long post-op and recovery periods before relearning how to walk.

I was continually told by my surgeons that I had unreasonable and unrealistic expectations regarding my long-term prognosis. That due to the injuries that I sustained in the accident that I would never walk normally again. What almost everyone including my physicians, surgeons and physical therapists didn't understand was that I didn't believe, nor did I expect my surgeries, procedures, and PT to return my broken, twisted, disabled body to the way it was before the accident. I expected my surgeries and procedures to give me the opportunity to use my decades of martial arts training along with my understanding of anatomy and biomechanics to rebuild my body's alignment.

I am a Black Belt in the martial arts styles of Kung Fu, Wushu and Escrima. My training is in the study of the biomechanics of movement, motion and alignment. In 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 and thousands of hours of classes become a Black Belt. Inside the Dojo there is no such thing as a weak side and a strong side and every exercise is done on both sides of your body allowing you to generate stable, balanced, movement and motion that maintains your body's alignment and engages and strengthens your core muscles as you move. I understood the day I started relearning how to walk that it didn't matter how strong I once was or what I could do up until the day of the accident.  What mattered was how I was going to start at the weakest point in my body and develop a Rehab Plan that would use Woff's Law and Davis's Law along with my martial arts training to reach my unreasonable and unrealistic expectations regarding my long-term prognosis

I didn't have a weak side and a strong side like I was continuously told. I had an underloaded injured side and an overloaded side. My overloaded uninjured side was becoming weaker and weaker from being continuously overloaded and my underloaded injured side was stopping the two sides of my body from working together.

I created a Movement, Motion and Alignment Map along with a Movement and Motion Journal. I used the journal to chart my progress and to help me understand how to keep adapting the standing, walking, sitting and stretching rehab exercises that I created as I progressed. Every exercise I did at home and at PT I did on both sides of my body and not just the injured side.

You can eat the best food and have the best healthcare, but If you walk with your head down looking towards your feet. Or you walk with your arm or arms extended away from your sides using a traditional cane, crutch, walking stick or walker to maintain balance, your core musscles will become weaker and your spine along with the rest of your body will lose alignment. Your step and stride will become too small and too short for your feet to contact the ground from heel to toe and engage your core muscles that keep your body upright and stable.

When you walk with your head up and your line of sight towards the ground ahead of you the way you drive a car or ride a bike your balance will be better. Your body will be more stable.Your arms will be able to swing forward and backward helping your feet contact the ground from heel to toe stabilizing your body and engaging your core muscles you walk. You will become more upright and stronger with time because you're moving your body the way it was designed to maintain alignment and engage and strengthen your core muscles.

Try walking across the room with your head down and your line of sight towards your feet. Feel how the core muscles around the top of your spine, shoulder blades and chest that keep your head and shoulders upright stop engaging. Notice how your walking stride becomes smaller. That your arms stop swinging forward and backward and how your weight is now distributed more on the front of your hips, knees, ankles and feet reducing your balance and making you less stable.

Then keep your head up with your line of sight towards the ground ahead of you on the other side of the room the way your drive a car or ride a bike. Notice that your body is more stable. That your weight is more evenly distribute over your hips, knees, ankle joints and feet. That your arms can swing forward and backward helping stabilize your body and your core muscles around the top of your spine and shoulder blades start engaging. When your feet contact the ground from heel to toe with your head upright and your line of sight towards the ground ahead of you not only do you engage your core muscles. You also reduce your risk of falling because your balance is better, your body is more stable and you have enough time to stop or step around anything that you might otherwise trip over causing you to fall.

Procedural memory is a form of muscle memory from which the neural pathways in our brain that make motor behavior automatic are formed. When movement is restricted, changed or altered for a continuous length of time without interruption the neural pathways that make motor behavior automatic are changed. To quote Dr. Davis, an orthopedic surgeon, "Use it or lose it." In other words, practice, good or bad makes permanent. You are the way you walk!

When my surgeon finished my leg surgery he made sure that my left leg was straight, aligned and the same length as my right leg. For the next three and a half months I used crutches with my left leg bent, locked in a brace with my foot off the ground non weight bearing. During that time the muscles between my hip and knee lengthened and the ones between my knee and foot shortened including my Achilles tendon. The crutches forced my head and neck to be aligned in front of the rest of my body. The top of the inside of my arms were positioned away from my sides and my shoulder blades were forced up and outward. My left leg and spine were misaligned, positioned and moved in ways they was never designed for.

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. My Achilles’ tendon had shortened from being off the ground for three and a half months and because of that my left heel didn't touch the ground when I stood or walked. I had a different length step, stride, and gait on each side of my body. Every step I took was painful and awkward. My head along with the top of my spine and shoulders were rotated forward and misaligned with the rest of my body . This was not a result of the car accident, but the result of the crutches that failed to keep my healing body upright, aligned and moving the way it was designed to be aligned and moved.

I developed drop foot from my foot being off the ground and from the nerve damage in my leg from the car accident. The front of my left foot didn't bend normally and there were places on the outside edge of my left foot that I couldn’t feel when I walked and when I was on the stairs.

After all of my surgeries and procedures I would complain to my physician husband that the crutches, leg brace, arm slings and other mobility devices were bankrupting the opportunity that my surgeons had given me by forcing my healing body to be continuously misaligned, moved and positioned in ways it was never designed for. I would tell my husband almost nightly that traditional crutch feet made a poor foot substitute because they weren't designed to maintain the body's alignment and upright posture from the back of the crutch foot to the front of the crutch foot like a foot. That the crutches were creating injury and secondary physical disability with each step that I or anyone else took.

When 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 their body's alignment, or an upright, stable heel to toe walking gait that engages and strengthens the body's core muscles by continuously forcing their body to be misaligned and moved in the ways that traditional canes, crutches, walking sticks and walkers force the body to be misaligned, moved and positioned. That if a walking cane stood straight by itself, but wouldn't let you stand up straight by yourself with your head upright and your arms next to your sides then your core muscles would become weaker and your body would become more misaligned and bent over and unstable with time.

 When I told my husband after I started walking 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 and moved then I do and I'm a physician. Stop complaining about the crutches, canes, walkers and walking sticks and use your knowledge of anatomy and human biomechanics and your ability to build things to build a new kind of mobility devices. Ones that maintain the body's natural alignment, upright posture and stability when walking, turning, and stepping backward. That can help you and other people regain, maintain or develop an upright, stable walking gait.

The 3rd Foot Cane that I invented along with my rehab plan allowed me to reach my unreasonable and unrealistic expectations and the ability to walk without a cane despite the prognosis I was given after the accident.

The West Coast Consortium For Technology And Innovation chose The 3rd Foot Cane as a 2020 Portfolio Member. 

In 2021 I was included in Think and Zoom Future of Disability — Global list of Disabled Innovators for the mobility devices that I invented and Patented.

The United States Patent Office and the Canadian and Chinese Patent Offices have granted a total of nine Patents for the mobility devices that I invented. This include seven Utility Patents and two design Patents for the cane, crutch, cane foot, crutch foot, walker and wheelchair.