Every step tells a story: a visit to a new city, a return to work, a walk down the aisle.
Jared, who lives with multiple sclerosis, hiked 10k steps to an elevation of 7,495 feet to visit Santa's workshop at Pike's Peak in Colorado.
Jan, who has a diagnosis of cerebral palsy, is back to her "happy place," strolling the beaches of California arm-in-arm with her husband.
Neale, a stroke survivor, takes his dogs for a walk every day at their favorite park in Cleveland, Ohio.
These are just a few of the many moments in the rich tapestry woven from the daily lives of Cionic Neural Sleeve users. These aren't sanitized steps on flat surfaces in a gait lab. These are hills traversed, stairs climbed, crowded rooms navigated, travel experienced, and time with loved ones shared.
At CIONIC, we love celebrating the personal stories behind our users’ steps. Today, we are thrilled to celebrate a milestone our entire community achieved together.
500 million steps stimulated.
Half a billion steps is the equivalent of 100 climbs up Mount Everest, 10 treks around-the-world, or a trip to the moon.
In the clinical context, where patients and their clinicians work hard every day to gain and maintain functional independence, 500 million steps is so much more significant. A study of post stroke rehab1 demonstrated that for every additional 100 steps of daily gait training, patients made significant gains in walking speed.
Yet the average number of steps per session was only 250.
The CIONIC community, by comparison, has now completed 2 million of these gait training sessions in real-world environments. Every one of these steps is precisely measured 100 times per second, and every muscle augmented by AI-powered stimulation that adapts with every step.
When we shipped our first Neural Sleeve just two years ago, it was our moon shot, launched on the conviction that full-leg stimulation, powered by sophisticated sensing and adaptive algorithms, would be a leap forward in functional mobility care.
To be truly effective, we knew that all that technology would need to be integrated into a form factor that was discrete and comfortable to wear all day, and that dedicated mobility specialists, who customize each user's mobility plan according to their changing needs, would be the key to unlock the greatest outcomes.
We are incredibly grateful to the thousands of you who have allowed us to be a part of your personal milestones, and we are inspired to continue working to improve mobility for millions more.
To our 1,500+ prescribers nationwide, the hundreds of physical therapists working with our technology, and the dozens of clinical, research, and advocacy partners collaborating to advance the field, we look forward to working together to define the future of connected precision mobility care.
500 million steps unlocks a universe of insights, from handling the vast variety of walking patterns, to building more intuitive interventions, adapting to different speeds and terrains, and so much more.
All of it brings us closer to the future we imagine: a world of super-powered movement for all.
1 Scrivener, K. (2012). Exercise dose and mobility outcome in a comprehensive stroke unit: description and prediction from a prospective cohort study. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine. 824-9.