[ad_1]
When Kelly Thomas had the phone call that was going to change her life, she almost hung up. "I thought it was a sales call or something," Thomas recalls.
But online was a researcher from the Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center at the University of Louisville, offering Thomas a place in a lawsuit – one that ultimately allowed a 23-year-old Florida native who became paralyzed after an accident of car in 2014, walk again.
The results of the study, published Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine, are striking. Of the four partially paralyzed individuals who underwent intensive mobility training, two, Thomas and Jeff Marquis, 35, have finally regained the ability to walk with the help of a spinal stimulator, paving the way for new therapies. cord injuries resulting in paralysis.
TIME Health Report
"Even for people with chronic injuries, there is a significant progressive recovery capacity that can impact their daily lives, quality of life, and functions," says Susan Harkema, Associate Scientific Director of the Center for Research on Cancer. the authors of the paper. "The spinal cord can relearn to walk again."
For Thomas and Marquis, this breakthrough was long. Thomas, a rider and a football player before her accident, was confined in a wheelchair for three years. Marquis, who broke his neck and became paralyzed after a mountain bike accident seven years ago, was forced to leave his chief post and needed help for everyday tasks like Get up from the bed. For both, learning to walk meant starting over.
"It was something automatic. I never really thought, "I have to straighten that leg and I have to raise the other leg," says Marquis. "Putting it all together requires as much mental endurance as physical."
Mindfulness was critical to the success of both patients, says Harkema. The technique developed by his laboratory has incorporated three crucial elements: stimulation by electrodes implanted on the spine, the physical assistance of trainers and the mental intention of individuals. It's only when all three have come together, she says, that patients have seen results.
Contrary to conventional medical wisdom, Harkema claims that many neurons remain active and active after spinal injury, even though they can no longer process and translate brain and environmental information, thus impeding movement. In this new study, Harkema and his team have shown that it is possible, in some cases, to recycle these existing circuits.
First, they implanted electrodes on the spine to generate electrical currents to exploit unsuitable circuits and "put the spinal cord in the right state so that it can function as before," says Harkema. (A separate pacemaker was also implanted surgically into their abdominal wall.) Then, a team of trainers physically moved the patient's body to help him remember what he was feeling. During this time, individuals have focused on moving, providing the mental intention to walk.
If these three things went perfectly together, Harkema said, the circuit took over and the individual was able to walk without assistance.
Getting there was not easy. Marquis was the first participant to try to take action with both legs by himself, but it took 85 weeks of training. When the day came, he knew it was the moment.
"It was going very well and I asked [the trainer] working on my left leg to let me take a few steps without help, and it worked, to the surprise of all, "says Marquis. "I was afraid to try and not work. But it was good and I thought, "Well, let's do that."
Jeff Marquis
University of Louisville,
Thomas, meanwhile, says that she was in a state of "complete shock" when, after 15 weeks of testing, she finally took her first steps. (Thomas started his training after Marquis and his initial injury was less serious.)
"I was just like," Ok, I do not know what I just did, but I have to start again, "she says with a laugh.
Today, both are able to walk using walkers or canes and report better health and a better quality of life through the spinal stimulator. And while the other two patients in the trial failed to walk independently, Claudia Angeli, another author and assistant professor in the spinal cord, regained torso stability and the ability to stand up. Injury Research Center.
"The ability to walk, the ability to stand up, the ability to voluntarily move the legs: it is there and can be recovered through the perfect combination of epidural stimulation and intention of the brain," says Angeli. "The spinal cord tells us that it is able to recover these functions."
The new research will need to be replicated in more patients to verify the results and accurately determine the injuries that this type of treatment can treat. But the results add to other promising results in the field. In 2014, researchers from the University of Louisville, including Harkema and Angeli, used epidural stimulation to help four paralyzed individuals regain the movement of their legs. And on Monday, the same day as Louisville's new study, researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles and the Mayo Clinic Medicine of nature that they helped a paralyzed man to walk with assistance.
"Just understanding that this ability is there should change the conversation about providing therapy and providing the right type of physical rehabilitation for people with this type of injury," says Harkema. "These discussions must now be open because there is evidence of these mechanisms."
Susan Harkema with Kelly Thomas
University of Louisville,
Source link
