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posted by martyb on Friday November 02 2018, @03:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the step-in-the-right-direction dept.

Spinal Stimulation Enables Three People With Paraplegia to Walk Again

Three men with paraplegia are able to walk after being treated with electrical stimulation of their spinal cords. The treatment, combined with physical therapy, enabled the men to overcome years-old spinal cord injuries that had paralyzed their leg muscles.

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), in Lausanne, who conducted the experiments, announced the results today in a pair of papers in Nature [DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0649-2] [DX] and Nature Neuroscience [DOI: 10.1038/s41593-018-0262-6] [DX]. Combined with recent efforts from other groups in the area of spinal stimulation, the work suggests that paralysis, once considered an incurable condition, is perhaps treatable.

The Swiss research adds to the body of work reported by two other groups that have enabled paralyzed individuals to walk using the experimental electrical treatment. In September, a group from the University of Louisville, in Kentucky, led by Susan Harkema, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine [DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1803588] [DX] that two people with spinal cord injuries were walking independently, with balance help, after months of electrical stimulation and training.

The same week, a separate group at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., reported in Nature Medicine [DOI: 10.1038/s41591-018-0175-7] [DX] that they too had successfully enabled one person with a spinal cord injury to walk the length of a football field, with a walker and physical assistance, after months of stimulation and training.

Also at Ars Technica.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02 2018, @06:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02 2018, @06:45PM (#756998)

    These are medical case studies of five patients, not clinical trials, so there won't be a "proper" untreated/mock treated control group.

    Instead, the case studies are compared to historical data:
    "this is the first report of independent stepping enabled by task-specific training in the presence of EES by a human with complete loss of lower extremity sensorimotor function due to SCI"
    "Persons with motor complete spinal cord injury, signifying no voluntary movement or sphincter function below the level of injury but including retention of some sensation, do not recover independent walking"

    Paywall solution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub [wikipedia.org]