The parents were in the hospital room with their boy lying motionless in the bed. Tears swelled in their eyes when I told them that their son would never walk again. And that was just the beginning of the medical problems this young man faced for the rest of his life.

Besides the obvious paralysis that comes with a spinal cord injury, a tetraplegia or paraplegia faces many inherent medical problems. The bowel and bladder cease to work properly, leading to chronic constipation and urinary...