Medtronic Puts Together Team of Athletes Who Benefit from Medical Devices

Applications are now open for the Medtronic Global Heroes team 2014. The Minneapolis, Minn.-based medtech giant puts together a team of runners every year that benefit from some kind of medical technology to run in the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon or the Medtronic TC 10 Mile race. Accepted runners get a paid entry for themselves and a guest, a travel package, and get to represent their country in the races.

Since 2006, 184 runners representing 27 different countries and a myriad of chronic and degenerative disease conditions have run the course that winds through the lakes and neighborhoods of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Last year, the team included Adriane Devereux from Dallas, Texas, who has an implanted spinal cord stimulator to help manage chronic pain. She was always an athlete and loved to swim, but when her back pain became too severe, she was afraid that she would no longer be able to participate in the sports she loved. She tried a number of different treatments before turning to the spinal cord stimulator as a solution. Since the procedure in 2002, she finished up her collegiate swimming career and has now taken up running to stay in shape.

2013 runner Sally Feinerman from Auckland, New Zealand, has an implanted pacemaker to treat an atrioventricular heart block. Feinerman was an avid runner and fitness trainer before she had a heart attack, and she thought at that time that her life as she knew would be over. However, after weeks of recovery, she was back on the track, and now works with the New Zealand Heart Foundation by raising money for the organization through walking groups.

Devereux and Feinerman are very representative of the 2013 team as a whole, which includes other patients with pain management stimulators and pacemakers as well as insulin pumps and shunts. Team members hail from all over the world, with representatives from every continent.

To qualify as a Global Hero, runners must currently be using a medical device therapy to treat the following disease categories: heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, spinal disorders, or neurological, gastroenterology and urological disorders. Eligible medical devices include any pacemaker or implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), any spinal device, any neurological device, any insulin pump, or any heart valve.