These Boots Are Made to Aid Walking : Disabled: Long Beach VA Hospital is among seven in the nation to test $4,000 footwear that helps paralyzed patients walk again.

Andy Ripchick recently stood up for the first time in 35 years.

“It changes your perspective,” said Ripchick, 52, who has been in a wheelchair since an automobile accident paralyzed him in 1955. “You can look people in the eye and feel better about yourself.”

The experience was made possible by a new pair of boots called the Vanini-Rizzoli Stabilizing Orthosis. Doctors consider them a major breakthrough for people with spinal cord injuries who, until now, have experienced the world primarily from a sitting position.

“The patients are ecstatic,” said Gabriel Perez, a spokesman for the Veterans Affairs Medical Center of Long Beach, where Ripchick and 21 other patients are involved in a two-year test of the seemingly simple new equipment that could radically change their lives. “This is the first time in years that some of them have been on their feet and able to see above waist level.”

Custom designed and manufactured in Italy at a cost of $4,000 per pair, the knee-high brown and black leather boots operate on a simple principle. By locking the ankle joints into standing position, doctors say, the boots automatically stabilize a wearer’s knees when he or she stands. Thus by shifting their upper body slightly to the left, right or forward, most patients are able to walk, and in some cases even climb stairs, with the aid of parallel bars, a walker or a special set of canes.

Some wheelchair-bound patients have been able to walk with leg braces for some time, of course. But the braces are cumbersome, extending from the ankles to the hips and weighing 30 to 40 pounds, said Dr. Herbert Kent, the hospital’s chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation. Most patients need help in getting them on. And because of the severity of their injuries, he said, some patients are unable to use the braces at all.

The boots weigh 2 1/2 pounds each, extend only to the knee and can be used by about 15% more patients than the braces, Kent said. Developed at a hospital in Imola, Italy, they have been tried on about 1,500 patients in that country, according to Kent.

The Long Beach VA hospital is one of only seven in the nation, and the only one in California, designated by the federal government to test the boots’ effectiveness by outfitting selected patients with them and monitoring their progress through 1991.

Those selected are then subjected to a rigorous training program lasting six to eight weeks, during which their upper bodies are strengthened through exercise and they are instructed in the boots’ use. The custom-fitted boots are ordered from Italy at the government’s expense.

Of the 22 patients in the program, the majority live at home and come to the hospital periodically for training, observation and practice, Kent said. He said the medical center hopes to enlist at least 13 more for the experiment.

“This is tremendous,” said Gilbert L. Garcia, 60, who has been in a wheelchair for 13 months because of a suspected clot in his spinal column. “I’m doing things I never thought I’d be doing again; this will open a lot more avenues.”

Chuck Anselmi, 42, a Vietnam veteran who was injured by a piece of shrapnel in 1969, was somewhat more reserved in his assessment of the new boots. “I appreciate it,” he said, “but it’s not like walking. It isn’t a healing. It’s a bio-mechanical process that allows you to take some steps.”

And Michael Jacobs, a 54-year-old accident victim who has been paralyzed for 24 years, seemed primarily attuned to the novelty of the situation during a recent practice session on the parallel bars. “The best thing is that you get to brag,” he quipped. “How many people do you know who wear a $4,000 pair of Italian leather boots?”