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Implanted Device Helps Two People With Paralysis Walk Again (nbcnews.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the medical-advances dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: At least five people whose legs were completely paralyzed are walking again, two of them with no outside help, thanks to a specialized program of therapy and a pain stimulator implanted in their spines, researchers reported Monday. It's the latest and most dramatic advance in a new approach to treating spinal cord injuries developed at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. The reports show that electrical stimulation of the spine, when combined with a very intense and specialized training program, can re-educate the body and help move the legs even though signals from the brain are cut off.

The stimulator is implanted into the epidural layer surrounding the spinal cord, and sends controlled signals into the bundle of nerve tissue. The team also employs intense training techniques to try to get the body to make sense of the signals. "There were three types of training sessions: stepping on a treadmill, over-ground standing, and over-ground walking, with each type of session performed daily," the team wrote in their report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Two still need support and help from human trainers, but Marquis and another patient, 23-year-old Kelly Thomas of Citrus County, Florida, can walk alone using a walker or a cane. A second team at the Mayo Clinic reports somewhat similar results using the Louisville approach. In their study, published Monday in Nature Medicine, they report on one of two patients they have treated, who can walk with the assistance of physical trainers.

19 comments

  1. Oh the humanity! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

    Won't someone think of the wheelchair builders?! This is solar power all over again! ;)

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Oh the humanity! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      They can be retrained as coal miners. Apparently we need more of them.

    2. Re:Oh the humanity! by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Ancient technology, instead retrain these people as natural gas extracters.

    3. Re:Oh the humanity! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whoosh

    4. Re:Oh the humanity! by EETech1 · · Score: 1

      Frack with them?!

  2. Not affordable for most everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    but think of the science.

    1. Re:Not affordable for most everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Cool your tits. The vast majority of technology you enjoy today (including many things you might not see as "technology") was once only within reach of the most affluent. That's the way this little game works. As the technology becomes refined and available to a larger audience the price goes down and eventually it'll be within most people's reach.

  3. Upgrade movie by dgoldman · · Score: 0

    Stem, are you listening?

  4. What an awesome time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm going to buck the Slashdot trend of sarcastic comments or black-hatting this.

    What an awesome time we live in! This is incredible. Sure it's a long way to go, and sure there is affordability issues, and none of these people are heading to salsa dance. But seriously, how would you feel if you were paralyzed and suddenly could walk again? I can't imagine. What an amazing time to be alive and see such things come to fruition.

    1. Re:What an awesome time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. This is a massive step forward in treatment options for patients with traumatic spinal cord injuries. Can you imagine what being able to walk in any capacity would mean to service men and women who were injured by IEDs or other attacks? What about all the other trauma patients who've been told for years they will never get out of a wheel chair after an accident. This is amazing news, and I look at this as a promise that we can and will find ways to heal injuries that were previously ignored as "untreatable".

      It's a fantastic time to be alive.

  5. for the naysayers by nimbius · · Score: 5, Informative

    who challenge that we cannot possibly rebuilt the connection of spine to spine, or even to brain, its worth remembering that the spine and brain are only 100 billion neurons, and a synaptic vesicle is only 50 nanometers.

    to put this into perspective, Ryzen's 8 core architecture is 40 billion transistors. the fabrication feature size is only 14 nanometers. At some point in the future a very important question will arise, and that is, whether we care to continue using a broken spinal cord, or simply replace it altogether.

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    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:for the naysayers by larryjoe · · Score: 1

      who challenge that we cannot possibly rebuilt the connection of spine to spine, or even to brain, its worth remembering that the spine and brain are only 100 billion neurons, and a synaptic vesicle is only 50 nanometers.

      to put this into perspective, Ryzen's 8 core architecture is 40 billion transistors. the fabrication feature size is only 14 nanometers. At some point in the future a very important question will arise, and that is, whether we care to continue using a broken spinal cord, or simply replace it altogether.

      I also hope that we can someday rehabilitate, repair, and replace nerves. However, while we can build new circuit devices with small dimensions and separations, we don't even bother to repair such circuits because it's such a hard problem. We just throw away the bad circuits. It's the splicing that's hard for chips or nerves. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to see spliced nerves before spliced chips. However, either spliced chips or nerves would be a tremendous breakthrough.

    2. Re:for the naysayers by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

      At some point in the future a very important question will arise, and that is, whether we care to continue using a broken spinal cord, or simply replace it altogether.

      We'll use the one that requires the least amount of retraining. However, the only realistic way (that my stupid brain can think of) is to replace these things is with synthetic biology. When we have synthetic biology mastered, very few things will be impossible.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  6. Good to See Tech Helping People by BrendaEM · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    On the other hand, we have Boston Dynamics, consumed with making tech that will kill us all.

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  7. makes me tired reading by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    Sounds like a lot of work. I'll wait for the pill to come out.

  8. Simply awesome :) by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

    No jokes for this one, that is wonderful :)

  9. Pain Stimulator? by Zorro · · Score: 1

    The Darkside is strong with this one.