HealthSouth Corporation has received notification from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearing the way for marketing the AutoAmbulator(TM), a potentially groundbreaking therapy machine designed to assist patients with neurological conditions such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, and spinal cord injury. The machine replicates a normal walking pattern to allow safe and efficient rehabilitation.

HealthSouth researchers believe that the AutoAmbulator is an important advancement in rehabilitative medicine, with the potential for providing unprecedented physical and emotional benefits. The highly specialized device holds the patient upright while robotic legs move the patient's legs and sensors linked to a computer track vital signs, movement and contact pressure.

"It's exciting to see this dream become a reality," said HealthSouth Chairman and CEO Richard M. Scrushy, who first envisioned the AutoAmbulator in 1999. "We're looking forward to the continued research and being able to put this incredible device in several of our facilities by the end of the year."

"The AutoAmbulator is a giant step for stroke and spinal cord injury patients because it is such a change from standard rehabilitation procedures," said Swaid N. Swaid, MD, an internationally recognized neurosurgeon who was involved with the research. "This device eliminates the awkwardness and the inefficiency of clinicians attempting to safely push and pull a paralyzed patient's legs while maintaining balance during conventional exercise routines."

Researchers from HealthSouth and the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Alabama are conducting clinical studies on the machine developed by HealthSouth to rehabilitate persons recovering from stroke and other neurological conditions affecting walking. The studies in Birmingham will help researchers establish safety parameters with a variety of patients suffering from neurological disorders. They will also establish normal walking motions on the treadmill to be used with the neurological patient population. These results are expected to guide further clinical studies aimed at the effect on health problems linked to paralysis, such as respiratory infections and blood clot formation.

"There is great hope about the potential of the AutoAmbulator for people with multiple neurological disorders, including multiple sclerosis," said John Riser, MD, Co-Director of the Tanner Center for Multiple Sclerosis at HealthSouth Medical Center in Birmingham. "We will play an active part in the research and are anticipating benefits for many of our patients."

"This is a substantial advancement for the field of spinal cord injury and stroke," said renowned researcher John McDonald, MD, PhD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. "It really demonstrates HealthSouth's dedication to its patients."

HealthSouth will gradually expand the availability of the AutoAmbulator to inpatient rehabilitation hospitals across the nation. Scrushy said that engineers will continue to work with clinicians and researchers to modify the machine and make it more efficient.

Information on cost, availability and plans for roll-out will be forthcoming in future updates and releases.

HealthSouth is the nation's largest provider of healthcare services, with approximately 1,900 facilities in all 50 states and abroad.

More information about the AutoAmbulator will soon be available at http://www.autoambulator.com/ . In addition, HealthSouth can be found on the Web at http://www.healthsouth.com/ .

Statements contained in this press release which are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the preceding statement, all statements in this press release concerning or relating to estimated and projected earnings, margins, costs, expenditures, cash flows, growth rates and financial results are forward-looking statements. In addition, HealthSouth, through its senior management, may from time to time make forward-looking public statements concerning the matters described herein. Such forward-looking statements are necessarily estimates reflecting the best judgment of HealthSouth's senior management based upon current information, involve a number of risks and uncertainties and are made pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. HealthSouth's actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those identified in this press release and in the public filings made by HealthSouth with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including HealthSouth's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2001 and its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and forward- looking statements contained in this press release or in other public statements of HealthSouth or its senior management should be considered in light of those factors. There can be no assurance that such factors or other factors will not affect the accuracy of such forward-looking statements.

For more information, please contact HealthSouth's Kristi Gilmore at 205-970-7824.

MAKE YOUR OPINION COUNT - Click Here
http://tbutton.prnewswire.com/prn/11690X57697092

SOURCE: HEALTHSOUTH Corporation