The Wind on My Legs': Stimulator Helps Paralyzed Men Move Again
Four men paralyzed after bad spinal cord injuries can all move their legs again, thanks to an electrical stimulator.
Astonished
researchers say they’d hoped for some result, but nothing like what
they got. They think the stimulator is retraining the mens’ nerves to
work with the brain again, despite the terrible damage.
“This is wonderful news.
Spinal cord injury need no longer be a lifelong sentence of paralysis,”
said Dr. Roderic Pettigrew, director of the National Institute of
Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, one of the National Institutes of
Health. “It is just downright marvelous.”
Rob Summers, now 28, was the first patient implanted and his case made international headlines in 2011 when
he was first able to stand using the stimulator. Summers now exercises
for three hours a day and says his life has been transformed.
“It has changed my life
on a day-to-day basis,” said Summers, who was paralyzed from the chest
down after a hit-and-run driver plowed into him as he stood in his own
driveway. “It’s given me the ability to travel alone and come and go as I
please.”
Summers says he does an
hour of abdominal exercises daily, reversing the gradual wasting of
muscles that normally comes with paralysis.
“I
can now feel soft touch, hard touch. I can feel pinpricks,” Summers,
who lives in Portland, Ore., told NBC News. “I can feel the wind on my
legs.”
“I can feel the wind on my legs.”
None
of the four men can walk again, but researchers believe the stimulator
is retraining the damaged nerves in their spinal columns to communicate
once again with the brain. They’re not sure why — it may be some
connection remained after their injuries or it is slightly possible the
nerves are re-growing.
“We have
uncovered a fundamentally new intervention strategy that can
dramatically affect recovery of voluntary movement in individuals with
complete paralysis even years after injury,” the researchers, led by Dr.
Susan Harkema of the Frazier Rehabilitation Institute and the
University of Louisville, write in their report, published in the
journal Brain on Tuesday.
Because
all four men tested have regained movement, including two who were
completely paralyzed, it’s likely that many people who believed they
were permanently paralyzed may be able to move again, says Reggie
Edgerton, distinguished professor of integrative biology and physiology
at the University of California, Los Angeles, who developed the
approach.
“It tells us that the
information from the brain is getting to the right place in the spinal
cord, so that the person can control, with fairly impressive accuracy,
the nature of the movement,” said Edgerton. “We don’t have to
necessarily rely on regrowth of nerves in order to regain function. The
fact that we’ve observed this in all four patients suggests that this is
actually a common phenomenon in those with complete paralysis.”
The
stimulator was originally developed by Medtronic to treat chronic pain.
It's a pacemaker-sized device implanted under the skin of the abdomen,
connecting to electrodes placed near the spinal cord. When turned on, it
delivers a low pulse of electricity.
"Spinal cord injury need no longer be a lifelong sentence of paralysis."
For patients with
chronic pain, the electricity interrupts the pain signal before it can
reach the brain. The researchers adapted it to try on patients with
paralysis.
“The next generation
will be more precisely controlled and noninvasive,” says NIBIB’s
Pettigrew, whose institute helped pay for the research, along with the
Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.
Pettigrew
says the results are no flash breakthough. They are based on decades of
work. He says researchers are already working with a fresh batch of
volunteers and will report new findings soon.
“It is why we come to work every day,” Pettigrew said.
The
next step is to try and make the approach work without having to
implant electrodes, Pettigrew said. The hope would be for an external
device, with electrodes simply stuck onto the skin to stimulate the
nerves.
“The implications of this
study for the entire field are quite profound and we can now envision a
day where epidural stimulation might be part of a cocktail of therapies
used to treat paralysis,” said Susan Howley, executive vice president
for research at the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.
University of Louisville
The accident cost Summers a
promising possible career in baseball. He’d been a top pitcher for
Oregon State University and he was struck a month after his team won the
college world series.
But he’s
happy now that going out to dinner is no longer an ordeal that required
hours of preparation. He’s strong enough now to hop into his wheelchair
and just go.
“Not only has this
benefited me with the confidence to go out and do what I want to do … I
can continue to live my life as I choose and not be restricted or
limited,” Summers said. His doctors say he has regained continence,
sexual function and even the lost ability to sweat.
“I truly believe this is the greatest thing out there,” Summers said.
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