If your doctor created nothing from the Pedro Bach-y-Rita case years ago you have a fucking incompetent doctor. I would argue you don't even have a doctor!
The Value of Crawling and Walking as a Rehabilitation
Two Holistic Rehabilitation and Recovery Consideration Possibilities
Posted April 11, 2025 Reviewed by Tyler Woods
Key points
- A college professor suffered a catastrophic stroke.
- A rehabilitation model based on the developmental progression of infants was initiated.
- Three years of daily “child development crawling” rehabilitation led to a full recovery.
In 1959, at the age of 65, Professor Pedro Bach-y-Rita, a college professor, suffered a catastrophic stroke (Doidge, 2010; Hunter, 1987; Purnell, 2015). Once he reached an appropriate level of recovery, and after consulting with all relevant medical staff—including Paul and George, the sons of Professor Bach-y-Rita—the hospital administration arranged to formally discharge the Professor into their care. This situation ultimately marked the beginning of a rehabilitation program developed by George, who was a medical student at the time.
Initially, George felt uncertain about his next steps. Ultimately, he determined that his father's rehabilitation model would be grounded in the developmental movement progression of infants (Doidge, 2010). He remarked, “The only model I had was how babies learn…to walk” (Doidge, 2010, p. 21). According to White et al. (2013), children start to advance to crawling between six to ten months of age, building their skills as a result of all the developmental movements that occurred since birth, which continually shape the infant's brain and body.
And So, the Crawling Rehabilitation Began
The crawling stage also includes a markedly more advanced and intricate movement progression that engages all four limbs. This complex movement progression allows infants to navigate independently within and around their environment.
This stage represents the ongoing development of both the brain and body, ultimately leading to the point when, by the age of 12 to 15 months, infants can take their first steps without assistance, marking the onset of walking (Adolph et al., 2012).
Keeping this universal developmental model in mind, George explained to his father that infants ultimately learn to walk through crawling (Doidge, 2010). Thus, the crawling rehabilitation commenced.
Three years of daily “child development crawling” rehabilitation followed, resulting in what might be considered a full recovery (Bach-y-Rita, 1980; Doidge, 2010; Hunter, 1987; Purnell, 2015). This rehabilitation approach and the resultant recovery completely contradicted the prevailing medical wisdom of that time.
The Value and Significance of Crawling as a Holistic Rehabilitation Modality
Interestingly, related to this, George and Paul were ridiculed at the time for allowing something as “humiliating” as crawling like a baby to happen to their father (see Bach-y-Rita, 1980). Doidge (2015) emphasises the importance of crawling by referring to the work of Moshé Feldenkrais, who highlighted its value and significance as a holistic rehabilitation modality.
Moshé Feldenkrais believed that walking depends on the neurological and neuromuscular foundational support provided by crawling. According to Doidge (2015, p. 189), Feldenkrais argued that any “attempts to leapfrog through development is a huge error.”
The Return to His Position as a College Professor
Doidge (2015, p. 189) also argued that “no one ever learned to walk by walking. Other skills must be in place for a child to walk—skills that adults don’t think about or remember learning.” As noted above, it was this daily recovery regimen centred around crawling that ultimately led to the situation where Professor Bach-y-Rita could return to his position as a college professor three years after his stroke.
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Famechon, Bach-y-Rita, Feldenkrais
With Moshé Feldenkrais mentioned, I'll include his story. I believe this information about Feldenkrais, as with Bach-y-Rita, provides valuable medical and holistic acquired brain injury (ABI) rehabilitation background that can be compared and contrasted to the ABI recovery of former World Boxing Champion John Famechon.
Feldenkrais, Soccer, Judo, Physics
Moshé Feldenkrais was born in Ukraine in 1904, at that time part of the Russian Empire. Three major influences shaped his life: soccer, judo, and his studies in physics. His soccer career ended after he sustained a knee injury. Although he recovered, Feldenkrais continued to experience constant pain following the injury.
Due to this ongoing pain, Feldenkrais began to adjust his walking. He also increasingly relied on his non-injured leg for movement. While this helped minimise the pain, favoring his non-injured leg ultimately led to signs of muscular atrophy in his injured leg.
While all of this was happening, Feldenkrais was also training in judo. After injuring his knee, he could no longer play soccer, but he maintained an interest in judo. Despite his knee injury, Feldenkrais continued to pursue this interest. However, even with his involvement in judo, Feldenkrais experienced difficulty walking, which, as noted, led to signs of atrophy in his soccer-injured leg.
A Forever Life Changing Circumstance
In the mid-1930s, Feldenkrais was living in Paris. One day, while walking down the street, he slipped and injured his ‘good’ leg. Now, Feldenkrais had two injured legs, forcing him to hobble home. By the time he finally arrived, he was utterly exhausted.
Due to this exhaustion, instead of administering first aid to his recently injured leg, Feldenkrais chose to go to bed and rest (with the hopeful possibility of sleep). He eventually fell into a deep and heavy sleep. The significance of this injury to his healthy leg and his choice to immediately go to bed, rest, and then sleep transformed Feldenkrais's thinking and life forever (Doidge, 2015).
When Feldenkrais awoke, he discovered that he could now stand on his long-injured and painful leg. He thought he was going mad. “How could a knee that had prevented me from standing for several months suddenly become usable and nearly painless?” Feldenkrais asked himself (Doidge, 2015, p. 165).
Reflection and Neuroscience
This prompted Feldenkrais to reflect on his interest in neuroscience and his readings on the subject. His interests and studies led him to hypothesise that the absence of pain in his previously injured’ soccer knee” was due to changes occurring in his brain and central nervous system.
Feldenkrais believed that “the acute trauma” to his now injured “good leg” somehow provided the neurological means to alter his brain in a way that inhibited the motor cortex brain maps of his ‘good leg,” which, as noted, was now his newly injured leg (Doidge, 2015, p. 165).
According to Feldenkrais, these changes in his brain occurred unconsciously, and as Feldenkrais reflected, “the purpose of which was to protect [his newly injured leg] from further injury should he [try to] move” that injured leg (Doidge, 2015, p. 165). This unexpected recovery led Feldenkrais to conclude that it was his brain, not just his body, that “was in charge of his level of functioning” (Doidge, 2015, p. 165).
Improbable
Doidge (2015, p. 165) rightly points out that all of this does seem like an improbable “new age wishy-washy fairy tale of recovery.” Two injured knees: one long-term, one short-term. Both injuries result in pain, and then, somehow, after walking home on these two injured legs without any form of first aid treatment, Feldenkrais goes to bed to rest and sleep. When he wakes up, the injury and pain of his newly injured leg have “disappeared!” How was this at all possible?
References at link. If your doctor has not read all of these; THAT IS PROOF OF COMPLETE
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