Mount Pleasant Magazine March/April 2016

motorized joints that move the legs. Crutches help keep

the body stable. Adam wears a watch that allows him to

choose one of three available modes: sit, stand and walk.

The exoskeleton soon will be approved for a stair-climbing

function, he said.

“I want this technology to come to life,” said Adam,

who learned to use the exoskeleton at the MUSC-Roper

Hospital Spinal Cord Injury Center. “Not many people

know about it.”

Indeed, the equipment, launched in 2012 and the

only exoskeleton approved by the Food and Drug

Administration for personal home use, is on the cutting

edge, still relatively new to the market. Adam believes

there might be 70 in the whole world and that he’s only

around the 20th person in the United States to have his

own exoskeleton.

They’re rare and they’re also expensive. ReWalk gave

him 120 days to pay off his exoskeleton, and Adam hopes

to raise $100,000 before then. He sells T-shirts around

town and is running a crowdfunding campaign on Go

Fund Me. He hopes taking part in the Bridge Run also

will help him raise money.

To train for the Bridge Run, Adam first had to gain

mastery over the exoskeleton, a long process that typically

takes 30 to 50 supervised sessions. Adam’s first three

or four lessons were devoted to simply learning how to

balance himself in a standing position, and it was another

two months before he was comfortable enough to walk.

He’s has been attending three-hour-long sessions three

times a week at Roper since August 2015 and now plans to

shift his training to his home on his own device.

“Roper has to sign you off on a bunch of skills, like a

Adam Gorlitsky learned

to use the exoskeleton

at the MUSC-Roper

Hospital Spinal Cord

Injury Center.