After a serious accident, Jared Chinnocker (26) was a paraplegic. Thanks to electric stimulation to the spinal cord, he can now go back a few steps. Even if physicians do not speak of healing, is the hope in a small implant.
A Paraplegic can walk with a little help of some step. By means of electrical spinal cord stimulation and 43 weeks of rehabilitation therapy, was able to lay back the Patient with 331 steps 102 meters, a team of researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester (Minnesota, USA). However, he needed a Walker and a support at the hip by a therapist. The Team of Kendall Lee and Kristin Zhao presented his technique in the journal Nature Medicine. Uninvolved doctors reacted skeptically.
In the case of a paraplegia, the spinal cord of the patient is so severely damaged, that the signals from the brain are not or hardly directed to the legs. With the electrical spinal cord stimulation physicians try to bridge the injured area.
Physiotherapist to build muscle
In the described in the study case, the 26-year-old Jared Chinnock, who had been injured three years before in an accident with the snowmobile on the sixth thoracic vertebrae. The spinal cord was not entirely severed. Therefore, the researchers wanted to find out how far you would come up with a spinal cord stimulation. In 2016, he was selected for a pilot project of the Mayo Clinic.
Six months simulated physiotherapists the Go – Chinnock has been held in a strap and the therapists moved his legs in order to strengthen muscles.
Then, a computer was attached to a controlled pulse generator below the level of injury to the spinal cord. This feels like Science Fiction, said Jared Chinnock in an Interview with the clinic. It was indescribable. As the Stimulator was activated, I was able to move my toes.
Electrical impulses send signals, such as in the case of the Walking motion
The doctors electrical impulses gifts in various leg muscles. In the process, they discovered that a single stimulation pattern is not sufficient. They developed two different patterns, which were so closely interwoven, that the Patient was able to master the various phases of a step.
To our Knowledge, the use of electrical spinal cord stimulation during task-specific training, including Floor and step activities, new, the researchers write. That may require further investigation with a larger number of subjects are now, in order to determine their validity and effectiveness.
Can be transferred to the individual case, on the other paraplegia?
Norbert Weidner, medical Director of the clinic for Paraplegiology at the University hospital of Heidelberg, holds the study, in principle, for well done. The observed effect is scientifically interesting anyway, but also with the shown progress of the Patient could not master his everyday life. In addition, a case is it more likely description, since only one Patient had been involved in the study. It is also a special Patient, so that it is questionable to what extent other cross-paralyzed patients can be trained in the same way, he told the German press Agency.
Thus, it would appear that there is no feedback on the position of the legs in space to the brain, what is for the safe necessary. Not completely Paralyzed, which can run below the injured site to the spinal cord, at least for movements, see Weidner, a greater potential for this approach to Healing.
To make in the laboratory steps does not mean that everyday life works out
Also Jocelyne Bloch, of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in Lausanne (Switzerland) is not convinced by the outcome of the study. He can go with a lot of help a couple of steps – but there was no neurological healing, she said, with a view to the patient. But to do that in the lab a few steps, it does not mean that it works well at home and in everyday life, and the lives changed. We should, therefore, occur literally take a step back and see the results in reality.
For more information on the fundamental opportunities and limitations of the method there is a study, which appears to be the same time in the journal the New England Journal of Medicine. In it, U.S. researchers Susan Harkema of the University of Louisville (state of Kentucky) report that four paralyzed patients, who had also been with the electrical stimulation treated. Two of them were able to go after intense Training back a few steps, all four were able to at least stand independently. In addition to the electrical Stimulation and the Training of the will of the patient for the walking ability was crucial: they had to go fixed – as soon as you set the mental intention, were not able to move your legs, the scientists report.
Here is the Newsletter of ‘health’ subscribe
Reports, Videos, backgrounds: From Monday to Friday, provided you FOCUS Online with the most important messages from the health Department. Here you can subscribe to the Newsletter easily and free of charge.