Daily Mail
26th August 2008

A man who has been paralysed for the past 20 years is able to walk again thanks to a revolutionary electronic exoskeleton.

Radi Kaiof, 41, now walks down the street with a dim mechanical hum as the system moves his legs and propels him forwards.

Radi Kaiof walks using an electronic exoskeleton. It is due to go on sale in 2010

'I never dreamed I would walk again. After I was wounded, I forgot what it's like,' said Kaiof, who was injured while serving in the Israeli military in 1988.

'Only when standing up can I feel how tall I really am and speak to people eye to eye, not from below.'

The device will allow many wheel-chair bound people to stand

The device, called ReWalk, is the brainchild of engineer Amit Goffer, founder of Argo Medical Technologies, a small Israeli high-tech company.

Something of a mix between the exoskeleton of a crustacean and the suit worn by Robocop, ReWalk helps paraplegics - people paralysed below the waist - to stand, walk and climb stairs.

Goffer himself was paralysed in an accident in 1997 but he cannot use his own invention because he does not have full function of his arms.

The system, which requires crutches to help with balance, consists of motorized leg supports, body sensors and a back pack containing a computerized control box and rechargeable batteries.

The user picks a setting with a remote control wrist band - stand, sit, walk, descend or climb - and then leans forward, activating the body sensors and setting the robotic legs in motion.

'It raises people out of their wheelchair and lets them stand up straight,' Goffer said.

'It's not just about health, it's also about dignity.'

Kate Parkin, director of physical and occupational therapy at NYU Medical Centre, said it has the potential to improve a user's health in two ways.

'Physically, the body works differently when upright. You can challenge different muscles and allow full expansion of the lungs,' Parkin said.

'Psychologically, it lets people live at the upright level and make eye contact.'

The ReWalk is now in clinical trials in Tel Aviv's Sheba Medical Centre. It is due to go on sale to the public in 2010 and will cost around £10,000.

Earlier this month I received an email about a woman named Irena Sendler, whose story I checked out on a website commonly used to confirm or deny the truth of stories. I did further research and put it together with the article on the website, which I fully acknowledged and linked to as always. I was amazed at Irena's heroic deeds and happy to be able to post her story.

Today, however, I received a message from a newly made Lj called mediacred. It said:

Notice of copyright infringement

Your blog entry at http://kiss-of-rage.livejournal.com/341750.html includes an unauthorized reproduction of our copyright-protected article from [insert name of website I will no longer link to, a site which freely copies all sorts of things...]

This violation has been reported to LiveJournal's copyright infringement department. Please remove this material from your blog promptly to avoid additional penalties for copyright infringement.

As I pondered what ADDITIONAL penalties I could possible suffer [I wasn't aware of any at all to begin with], I changed my post and took out all reference to [insert crapass website].

And as 'mediacred' [mediacrud] had no entries to comment on, of course, I sent this user a message:

In all my years of blogging and using stories to educate people, no one has ever complained. Many have discovered the links I post and become lifelong readers of the sites I have mentioned. Thanks to you, however, I will no longer post links to, mention or recommend [insert pissy website name], but I will tell people how petty you are against a lone blogger with a small readership that doesn't amount to a hill of beans and who makes no money whatsoever off her blog. Your site itself copies other things freely and generously. What a hypocrite you are.

Piss on [insert name of picayune website].