Just a few months ago, swinging a golf club was something Doug Gillespie found difficult to do.

Gillespie had a stroke in July 2012. He now suffers from a condition called foot drop — a partial leg paralysis that prevents the foot from lifting and moving properly.

“It’s basically having a dead foot. You have no muscle control, virtually at all,” said Gillespie. “When you walk, your foot just sort of drags and flops, drags and flops.”

Gillespie was fitted for a new leg brace a few months ago. The brace, made by U.S.-based Bioness, sends an electronic signal to the foot when a patient walks, which allows the foot to pick up and move more freely.

“The patient also doesn’t have to think so much about what they’re doing because the machine just actively stimulates that motion for them,” said Karen Craven, a sports physiotherapist at Craven Sport Services.

Foot drop is a common problem for people whose central nervous systems are affected by things like stroke, a brain injury, multiple sclerosis or cerebral palsy.

“Previous to this type of system, they would have to be in some sort of rigid plastic type of ankle brace that would just passively hold the foot up, which doesn’t allow for normal ankle movement or toe movement,” said Craven.

The Bioness device prevents the leg muscles from wasting away when combined with physiotherapy, but it’s not a cure for foot drop and it’s not cheap. Each brace comes with a price tag of about $8,000.

Gillespie said he was fortunate to be able to afford one. He knows his life won’t ever be the same as it was before his stroke, but he said with some hard work and the help of the brace, his life is getting better, one step at a time.

“It’s a life changer. As much as your life has changed, this is a mechanism to help you get your life to a certain degree of normality,” he said.

The Bioness device is not covered by the provincial health plan, but a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said the department is looking at this device and other similar ones on the market. The ministry won’t make a decision on coverage until at least next year.