Epidural stimulation of the spinal soft can improve paralyzed patients, even if they have been paralyzed for about ten years.
We knew it for a few months already, people who have been paralyzed for a few years can walk again with the help of electrical impulses. The French neuroscientist, Grégoire Courtine, had indeed, with a team in Switzerland, succeeded in making several paralyzed patients walk again by performing electrical stimulation of their spinal cord by epidural route.
Chronically paralyzed
This time it was the University of Minnesota and Hennepin Healthcare Medical Center that looked into the matter, but with a new focus, patients with complete paralysis for many years. Indeed, the chosen patients were respectively 48 and 52 years old, and had been paralyzed for at least 5 to 10 years. The selected patients had a devastating spinal cord injury and no longer had any active lower body function. The MRI, on the other hand, showed very little residual spinal cord at the level of the lesion.
The researchers demonstrated that epidural spinal cord stimulation could immediately restore certain voluntary movements, but also certain functions independently. “Allowing someone to move their legs more than 10 years after being paralyzed from a spinal cord injury was one of the greatest moments of my career. said Uzma Samadani, associate professor in the department of neurosurgery at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
Essential functions
The restored functions are essential for a good quality of life, or even simply to live. The cardiovascular function of a participant, suffering from cardiovascular dysautonomia, that is to say that there was no longer any adaptation of his heart to variations in position and environment, was restored using of the specifically parameterized implant. Conversely, a patient with normal cardiovascular activity was not affected by the implant.
The synergy between the bladder and the intestines improved in patients, one of them was able to see his voluntary urination recover. One of the participants was also able to reach orgasm again, something that had not happened to her since her accident. While the studies will continue, the results are already more than promising for all people with paralysis.
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