Spinal Bypass Surgery Is Here!
May 2011
An American man who was paralyzed from the chest down after being hit by a car can now stand through a technique that delivers electrical stimulation to his spinal cord.
Rob Summers, from Oregon, remarked that standing on his own was "the most amazing feeling."
He is now able to move his toes, knees, hips, and ankles.
Rob, a baseball player who in 2006 was part of the team that won the College World Series, was hit by a hit and run driver that same year, and his spinal cord was injured.
In the experimental proceedure, doctors implanted 16 electrodes into his spine. In just a few days he was standing and taking steps.
Researchers do not know why the electrical stimulation is working. It is possible that inactive nerve cells are now being activated, or that new cells are growing as a result of the stimulation.
Rod has also benefitted from improvement to bowel, bladder and blood pressure control. Previously, he was not able to move his legs at all.
Dr Melissa Andrews of the Cambridge Centre for Brain Repair, said the study was a "little bit mind blowing," but people should not consider this to be a cure.
Another researcher who was part of the study, Professor Susan Harkema, said: "It is really critical to be clear that it's still in a research realm, but stay tuned we're going to learn a lot more every day."
February 2008-
A breakthrough in spinal surgery offers hope to victims of paralysis.The technique, which has been tested on rats, involves bypassing damaged tissue in the spine.
This allows signals to travel across injured areas, New Scientist reports.Dr John Martin and his colleagues at Columbia University in New York have so far tested the procedure only on rodents. They selected a motor nerve branching from the healthy cord above the injury and cut it away from the abdominal muscle to which it is normally attached.They then stretched the free end across the injured section of spinal cord and used a protein "glue" to fix it.
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