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Spinal Implant Helps Three Paralyzed Men Walk Again (bbc.com)
Doctors in Switzerland have used an electrical device to help three paralyzed men walk again. The device was inserted around the men's spines to boost the signals from their brains to their legs. The study has been published in the journal Nature. The BBC reports: The first patient to be treated was 30-year-old Swiss man David M'zee, who suffered a severe spinal injury seven years ago in a sporting accident. David's doctor said he would never walk again. However, thanks to an electrical implant developed by a team at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), he can walk more than half a mile with the implant turned on. Two other men have also managed to walk again, to varying degrees. Gertan Oskan, a 35-year-old engineer from the Netherlands, was knocked over by a car seven years ago. His doctors told him on his birthday that he would be paralyzed for life. He is now beginning to regain some movement. Sebastian Tobler, a 48-year-old man from Germany, was a keen cyclist who loved being out in the countryside before he was knocked off his bike. Now he's back on a specially adapted bike that is powered mostly by his hands -- but also partly by his legs.
to read some positive news....
Pff... the J-man healed paralyzed men before it was cool. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Obviously there was a spinal tap involved.
> he can walk more than half a mile with the implant turned on.
Let's hope he remembered to turn back after a quarter of a mile.
Because that has been the killer for all kinds of implants interfacing nerves so far.
It is however good to know that if electrode endurance gets solved, there will be some really useful things that will become viable outside of limited experiments.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.