Narrative for SAM Video
Visual—Videos showing space shuttle take-off and images from space.
Audio—[narrator voiceover] Everyone knows that NASA is working to help us better understand Earth and the universe that surrounds us. But what some people don’t know is that NASA’s mission includes transferring its space-related inventions to more down-to-Earth applications. At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center these efforts are lead by the Technology Transfer Program.
Visual—Nona Cheeks (Chief, Technology Transfer Program, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) speaking at desk; then cuts to videos depicting various applications of NASA technologies
Audio—Nona: There are several markets that we found in the past that we’ve identified for future applications of NASA technology. They include medical industry. They include the aeronautics industry, industrial applications, manufacturing, things of that nature.
Visual—Video panning in on the SAM device and then showing a demonstration of the device.
Audio—[narrator voiceover] And NASA technology is being used to improve physical therapy. A new rehabilitative device called SAM is being manufactured by Enduro Medical Technology to assist patients undergoing standing therapy to treat acute trauma or degenerative illness.
Visual—Demonstration of SAM device; then cuts to Kenneth Messier (President, Enduro Medical Technology) speaking during interview.
Audio—Ken: The Secure Ambulation Module is a physical therapy device which allows them to walk partial weight bearing, full weight bearing or non-weight bearing. Whether they have a sense of balance or don’t have a sense of balance.
Visual—SAM device demonstration with close-up of foot movement; then cuts back to Kenneth Messier speaking during interview and then back again to the demonstration
Audio—Ken: This allows them to be up in a standing position without having three or four therapists having to help them stand. So what it allows you to do is to get that patient up sooner in the rehab process without that patient having a fear of falling and without an injury to the patient or an injury to the staff member.
Visual—Photograph of James Kerley & Wayne Eklund
Audio—[narrator voiceover] SAM’s origins were at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where the late James Kerley and Wayne Eklund first had the idea for the walker.
Visual—Wayne Eklund (Inventor, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) speaking during interview
Audio—Wayne: Mr. Kerley came up with the idea of supporting the person from the sides with a harness arrangement. Jim and I sat down and we started working ideas on that.
Visual—Photograph of the inventors, Allen Crane, James Kerley & Wayne Eklund
Audio—[narrator voiceover] Kerley and Eklund turned to Allen Crane for the system’s harness.
Visual—Allen Crane (Inventor, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) speaking during interview.
Audio—Allen: I looked around. I actually just grabbed some off-the-shelf windsurfing harnesses and we gave them a try.
Visual—Photographs of basic walker; then cuts to shots of a trade show and demonstration of SAM device.
Audio—[narrator voiceover] The inventors continued development until the basic walker was complete. Then Goddard’s Technology Transfer Program began promoting it at trade shows and conferences. James Kerley would demonstrate the walker.
Visual—James Kerley demonstrating SAM device at trade show; then cuts to an interview with Kerley’s daughter and sons.
Audio—Catherine: He himself had bad knees. So when they’d go to a show, they’d put him in it and he’d be happy to demonstrate it for hours on end.
Visual—James Kerley’s children, Catherine Castellan, speaking, Vincent Kerley and Joseph Kerley during interview
Audio—Catherine: He says” watch this” and he hiked it up and you could just see the pain kind of ease from his face. He’d say “see, the pain goes away”.
Visual—Video of SAM device demonstration; then photographs of patients in traditional physical therapy
Audio—[narrator voiceover] Through these conferences and the work of NASA’s Commercial Technology Network, Enduro Medical Technology became aware of Goddard’s walker. The company saw that it would be an ideal alternative to traditional methods of physical therapy.
Visual—Therapist and patients during standing therapy; then cuts to Kenneth Messier speaking during interview and then back to video of SAM demonstration.
Audio—Ken: Standing therapy has been clinically proven for many years by therapist and the problem has always been how do you stand someone that has no sense of balance without using a large number of people. And with cut-backs in staffing at the hospitals and nursing homes, this allows that patient to stand on their own once they’re in it.
Visual—Allen Crane speaking during interview
Audio—Allen: A lot of the existing systems are almost self-defeating in that they require so much of the person’s strength to support their own weight, that you wear yourself out taxing your upper body and what we really wanted to work was the lower body.
Visual—Patient using SAM device; then cuts to close-up of cable-compliant joint system
Audio—[narrator voiceover] The technology that allows this is NASA’s cable-compliant joint mechanism connected to the harness. Unlike a fixed joint which can move in only one or two directions, NASA’s compliant joint uses short pieces of cable that allow subtle movement in six directions.
Visual—Patrick Summers (Engineer, Enduro Medical Technology) speaking during interview; then cuts to SAM device demonstration.
Audio—Patrick: What the compliant joint does, it basically creates six axis of freedom of which we lock-out one which mimics the motion of the hip. It’s a great system which is virtually impossible to duplicate with any other mechanical means.
Visual—Allen Crane speaking during interview; then cuts to close-up of SAM device demonstration.
Audio—Allen: The thing that the compliance provides to the walker is a flexibility to allow the person to walk with a normal gait. And yet if that person stumbles, the compliance can right them. Just as the keel of a ship will keep the ship upright in a storm.
Visual—Photograph of cable system; then cuts to photograph of inventors
Audio—[narrator voiceover] Enduro licensed the cable-compliant technology and the walker from Goddard in order to build a commercially viable product.
Visual—Nona Cheek speaking; then cuts to video of inventors.
Audio—Nona: One of the benefits of our program is the relationships that we build with industry to make sure that those technologies that companies license from NASA or the companies working with NASA to further develop reach their fruition.
Visual—Darryl Mitchell (Technology Transfer Program, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) speaking during interview
Audio—Darryl: We try to support them however we can and if Enduro has some ideas of new ways that they can use the technology in new applications, we make sure of that synergy to maybe take that technology on to the next level.
Visual—Photographs of original inventors of the SAM device
Audio—[narrator voiceover] Part of the ongoing support provided by NASA Goddard was allowing Enduro engineers to meet with the walker’s original inventors.
Visual—Video of Darryl Mitchell; then Kenneth Messier speaking
Audio—Ken: Darryl was a very good contact for us and allowed us access to the scientists and made them accessible to us which was a huge benefit in going through the process.
Visual—Darryl Mitchell speaking during interview
Audio—Darryl: They just wanted to come and talk to the inventors to see what developments had been made, where the technology had gone, did it make sense in their application in the way they envisioned it.
Visual—Patrick Summers speaking; then photographs of Kerley demonstrating device.
Audio—Patrick: Because the NASA engineers had literally taken it and developed it into a product, they had already eliminated a lot of problems and you could talk to them about that and say well that didn’t work, that’s why we didn’t go there.
Visual—Photographs of harness system
Audio—[narrator voiceover] As Enduro continued the development—improving the harness and making other additions—the company’s contact with NASA continued. This ongoing communications was essential to SAM’s completion.
Visual—Patrick Summers speaking during interview.
Audio—Patrick: It’s moved us into a technology that would have taken us ten years to come to.
Visual—Demonstration of SAM device
Audio—Enduro Medical Technology is now taking orders for SAM, and the product will be introduced in Spring 2003.
Kenneth Messier speaking during interview.
Audio—Ken: NASA has assisted us in other areas outside the scientific environment and production environment by introducing us to people here and in Maryland who can work with us on that type of a product to bring it to the marketplace.
Visual—PowerPoint slides showing medical conditions that would be benefited by the SAM device.
Audio—[narrator voiceover] And because the device can be used by a wide range of patients, SAM’s impact is expected to be significant.
Visual—Patrick Summers speaking during interview
Audio—Patrick: The market is a thousand times what we originally thought it was and we thought it was pretty big. And it gets bigger every day. We ran into somebody who came in to look at it for one reason and said “I’m a sports medicine guy. This is going to speed up ACL recovery by 10 times.”
Visual—Demonstration of SAM at trade show
Audio—[narrator voiceover] Indeed, SAM will revolutionize physical therapy and rehabilitation. And what of NASA’s cable-compliant joint technology?
Visual—Photograph of cable-compliant mechanism
Audio—Patrick: There’s a ton of things they can do with the compliant cable mechanisms.
Wayne Eklund speaking during interview
Audio—Wayne: Every time we turn around somebody comes to us with a different use for it.
Visual—Shot of the cover page of a GSFC Technology Transfer brochure
Audio—[narrator voiceover] And the Technology Transfer Program at Goddard Space Flight Center is there to make those connections possible.
Visual—Wayne Eklund speaking during interview
Audio—Wayne: Once we come up with the ideas and build a prototype we generally turn everything over to them. They do the marketing. Which is great, as far as I’m concerned, because that allows me the time to work on the next project or next idea.
Visual—Darryl Mitchell speaking during interview
Audio—Darryl: It’s great that you have a program like tech transfer that can take that same scientific research and find something that benefits the everyday person in the short term to give you that added value.
Visual—Kenneth Messier speaking during interview
Audio—Ken: If you can transfer this kind of technology, it’s the American taxpayers that are funding NASA and if you can use one of their technologies to benefit really hundreds of thousands of patients a year, they should be transferring that technology back to the community and back to the health care institutions so that patients can benefit.