Breakthrough Spinal Implants Help The Paralyzed Walk, Swim, Cycle Again

As limb-regenerating frogs have proven, medical incidences long regarded to be the “end of story” for some are beginning to see new chapters unfold out of the impossible. 

Paralysis has been considered to be an irreversible condition for a long time now, but new tech from the Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland is showing that it, too, can be undone. 

Three patients who had been previously totally paralyzed from the waist down from spinal cord injuries are now able to walk on their own two feet with the aid of a walker and implants that stimulate the nerves in their backs and legs. 

One of the three is an Italian man called Michel Roccati, who, like the other two men, had been injured for more than a year. “On the first day, I was able to see my legs moving and it was very, very emotional,” he recalls to New Scientist. 

Roccati uses the implanted device for up to two hours a day, which has enabled him to go for walks alone as well as cycle and swim. Apart from relative freedom, it also eases pain caused by remaining in a wheelchair all the time.

A tablet computer allows users to choose what types of movement they want to make at a given time, which then links to a device implanted in their abdomen, the neurostimulator. This connects to electrodes on their spine, activating the nerves. 

Spinal cord stimulators have been used previously to treat chronic pain, per NBC, but the version used in this Swiss technology has had adjustments made to focus on nerves in the spinal cord—those that control leg and trunk movements—instead of pain receptors.

“It’s not easy and it takes a lot of work, but it’s a dream for most people in this group,” Dr Jocelyne Bloch, research co-author, tells the publication. 

A statement from the hospital reports that even without stimulation, patients have been able to continue recovering lost neurological function outside training sessions. “So far, seven patients have been operated on, and all are showing progress,” Bloch states.

A second version of the life-changing device is being developed, which will reportedly see a larger sample size of 20 patients being treated just after their accident. 

[via New Scientist and NBC, image via Lausanne University Hospital]