Published: February 25, 2006 12:07 am      

Woman turns to magnet therapy for spinal injury

LORETTO — Heather Mallory is like many other active, single 30-year-olds.

She likes to spend time with her friends and her boyfriend, listen to bands and go to the movies.

But Mallory has to do it from her wheelchair.

An Aug. 28, 2004, traffic accident in Loretto left her partially paralyzed from a spinal cord injury.

The attractive, gregarious former bartender has come a long way since waking up at UPMC Presbyterian in Pittsburgh a few weeks after the one-car wreck.

Traditional therapy and a new, unproven, alternative approach using strong electromagnets have given her hope for an independent lifestyle.

“All I could do was move my shoulders a little,” Mallory said, remembering those days in autumn 2004.

“It was at least five weeks before until she could talk,” her mother, Barbara Mallory, said at their Red Brick Road home near Loretto.

The daughter attributes her recent improvements to the magnets.

But conventional medicine has not latched on to the magnet treatment.

“I don’t think there is scientific proof yet that magnet therapy helps, but it is harmless,” said Dr. Sharon Plank, research and development director for John Murtha Neuroscience and Pain Institute. She also is a certified medical acupuncturist.

Other health-care experts say that almost any “therapy’’ can improve one’s frame of mind. They cite the placebo effect.

Mallory’s prognosis after the accident was not good.

“They said I would probably never have anything from my chin down,” she said.

Not willing to give up, Mallory threw herself into therapy, fighting to regain all the feeling and function she could. The spinal cord was not severed, but progress has been slow.

She now has motion down to her hips, and some feeling to her feet.

As her therapists at HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital in Altoona helped her regain movement, strengthen muscles and prevent atrophy, her family and friends did more research.

They learned about magnetic molecular energizing treatments being touted as a system using magnetic fields to “speed up the movement of electrons resulting in magnetic resonance.”

The Advanced Magnetic Research Institute says the system creates a “harmonic match of frequencies with the body’s organs that enhances the body’s ability to heal, create enzymes and boost immunity.

Mallory has made two extended trips to the institute’s Pennsylvania clinic in Hanover, York County. Each time, she completed 200 hours on the magnetic therapy table during 10 days – at $50 an hour.

“It’s hard to explain,” she said. “I feel a lot of stuff on the inside. My muscle groups are starting to work together.”

Her therapists confirm the changes.

“We have seen an increase in sensation and apprehension – knowing where her knees are in space, knowing if they are bent,” said Angie Young, physical therapy assistant from HealthSouth.

“I didn’t know if my knees were there before,” Mallory added.

She believes the new therapy works as part of a complete program and support system that includes her family, friends and HealthSouth therapists. Her father, for instance, built a therapy room and made a standing-assist lift, based on HealthSouth’s equipment.

Dr. Trent Nichols at the Hanover clinic admits most seeking magnet therapy are like Mallory: They have run out of conventional options.

“There isn’t much out there, to be honest with you, for many of these things,” Nichols said.

Most of his patients see some improvement, Nichols insists, noting the institute has treated more than 1,200 patients at its seven clinics nationwide. Stroke patients and those with chronic back pain provide the majority of the work.

The institute has established its own review board of doctors and scientists. The board sets protocol and review results for study under federal Food and Drug Administration guidelines, Nichols said.

All of the results are anecdotal, he admits, because no clinical trials have been held.

“We have no sponsors,” Nichols said. “There is no big money here.”

Another local expert said more serious study is just what he wants to see.

Michael Liebman, executive director of Windber Research Institute, said money is available for clinical trials on promising therapies.

“Companies that make the magnets should fund this research,” Liebman said. “If this is a good opportunity, you would think some of those companies might be interested.”

Profit motive aside, Liebman said, the federal government also funds clinical trials through National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health.

Windber is studying several alternative treatments to measure results at the cellular level, Liebman said.

“This will give us something that’s not so subjective as some of the claims tend to be,” Liebman said.

There is scientific basis to believe magnetic therapy can help some patients, but it may not be magnets causing the improvement, Liebman said.

“The reality is, with almost any treatment, there is the actual response to treatment, plus the psychological effect of the treatment,” Liebman said. “It’s a placebo effect.”

“I never discount the placebo effect,” Plank said.

Mallory understands that.

“I don’t care what other people believe, I believe in it,” she said. “But I believe in a lot of mind-over-matter.”



Randy Griffith can be reached at 532-5057 and rgriffith@tribdem.com.