One day Rob Summers was a 20-year old pitcher for Oregon State’s championship baseball team, the next back in July of 2006, he was taking his gym bag out of his car when another car jumped the curb and knocked his legs out from under him. He woke up unable to move his legs or trunk, or to control his anal sphincter or bladder. Today, he is the first person ever with a spinal cord injury that can stand voluntarily without assistance and this accomplishment is being hailed as a huge scientific and treatment breakthrough.
Susan Harkema, PhD, of the University of Louisville, Kentucky, and colleagues said in a news conference announcing related studies:
“What we have found here is a new set of mechanisms that have never been taken advantage of in a therapeutic way. It opens a whole new set of possibilities for patients, not just those recently injured but those who have been injured for months and years.”
How? What? Huh?
Summers does it with the help of a pacemaker-like device that sends a gentle electric current through 16 electrodes implanted in his spine. The device doesn’t make his muscles move — he does. This epidural stimulation excites the neurons in his spine, allowing them to receive and react to sensory information from his legs.
Harkema’s mentor and study partner, University of California, Los Angeles researcher V. Reggie Edgerton, PhD continues:
“When Rob regained voluntary control of his leg, I was afraid to believe it when I saw it,” Edgerton said at the news conference. “What nobody has ever demonstrated is that epidural stimulation at modest levels enables an individual to have conscious control of body motion. Someone with paralysis for several years can now control his movement. This has never been done before.” Summers says in his words: “Being able to stand for first time was both emotional and exciting. After years of seeing no gains or recovered function, I was able to see my hard work pay off. It was as rewarding as anything I have ever done in my life.”
Summers became the first of a planned five patients to receive the epidural stimulation device, originally designed and FDA-approved for pain relief. California Institute of Technology engineer Joel Burdick, PhD, adapted the device for spinal cord treatment. Jonathan Hodes, MD, chair of the University of Louisville department of neurosurgery, implanted the device into Summers’ spine.
Summers continues:
“Being able to move my ankles, my toes, my knees; there are not enough words to describe how I felt after not having anything for four years. It was a dream and now it is a reality. I am going to work until I achieve all my goals. I have a long list: First to stand completely independently, then to take steps in a functional manner, and eventually to play baseball again. Not only has this given me more quality of life, but I have the confidence to get out in world and live my life.”
Harkema and colleagues warn that the procedure remains experimental, and that the device implanted into Summers will have to be redesigned for spinal-cord treatment. They are not sure exactly which spinal-cord-injury patients can be helped with this technique and which can’t.
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Written by Sy Kraft