Stony Brook University, in collaboration with NextStep Fitness, announced plans to build the NextStep Fitness Center at Stony Brook Medicine, the first fitness and wellness facility in New York state for people with paralysis and spinal cord injuries.
Plans for the building were announced at NextStep’s “Help Make a Difference” Benefit on June 7, where the goal was to raise $1.5 million toward the development of the new building. Adjacent to the University’s Rehabilitation Research and Movement Performance Laboratory, the new rehabilitation, fitness and wellness facility will be the only facility in New York to offer locomotor training.
“There are no acute spinal cord rehabilitation facilities located in New York state,” Craig Lehmann, PhD, FACB, dean of the School of Health Technology and Management at Stony Brook University, said. “People with spinal cord injuries must travel to Manhattan or New Jersey to get the level of rehabilitative care they need.”
“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 within the national Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation NeuroRecovery Network and locally within the Stony Brook University and Long Island community,” Samuel L. Stanley Jr., MD, president of Stony Brook University, said.
