by Claude Solnik Published: June 8, 2012 Tags: Long Island, Multiple sclerosis, New York, NextStep Fitness, paralysis, spinal cord injuries, Stony Brook University

NextStep Fitness founder Janne Kouri (seated)

Stony Book is collaborating with Los Angeles-basedNextStep Fitness to build the organizations first fitness and wellness facility in New York for people with paralysis and spinal cord injuries.

Stony Brooks School of Health Technology and Management is helping the California firm develop the facility, which would be located at and connected to the university.

The Stony Brook facility will be the first NextStep location linked to an academic research center, which has the expertise to quickly disseminate important research findings related to fitness and wellness facilities, Stony Brook President Samuel Stanley said.

NextStep, a nonprofit founded by Janne Kouri, a former Georgetown University football player paralyzed in a swimming accident in 2006, hopes to raise $1.5 million to launch the facility at Stony Brook, to be named NextStep Fitness Center at Stony Brook Medicine.

Stony Brook estimates there are 80,000 people with spinal cord injuries nationwide, with 600 injuries a year occurring in New York. There are another 9,000 people with multiple sclerosis.

There are no acute spinal cord rehabilitation facilities located in New York state, said Craig Lehman, dean of the School of Health Technology and Management. People with spinal cord injuries must travel to Manhattan or New Jersey to get the level of rehabilitative care they need.

The NextStep facility at Stony Brook be the only one of its kind in the state and the first planned in addition to the original Los Angeles facility. The nonprofit, which hopes to open locations around the country, also is planning a facility for the Washington, D.C., area.

More here:
Stony Brook to build spinal cord injury rehab center

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