Page 58 - MIN VOS 27 JULY 2015

HEALTH:
How paralyzed patients are able to stand again
IN what’s being hailed as a breakthrough in spinal
cord injury research, four men paralyzed from the chest
down have risen from their wheelchairs on their own
volition and effort.
“I can stand up for more than half an hour,” said
Dustin Shillcox, who was paralyzed in a car accident
five years ago.
“It’s awesome.
It’s amazing.
It’s a hopeful feeling.”
Shillcox and the other three men had electrical stimu-
lators surgically implanted in their spines, and are
working toward walking again someday. Their stand-
ing achievements were published this weekend in the
online journal PLOS ONE by Dr. Susan Harkema and
her colleagues at the Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Re-
search Center at the University of Louisville.
The Christopher and Dave Reeve Foundation, which
helped fund the study, has named the Kentucky re-
search as its “Big Idea” and is raising $15 million to do hips of more than 30 people, allowing them to stand
the procedure in dozens more patients.
Already, more than 4,000 people have signed up to
become research subjects. “We’re really excited. We
ARUBA TRAVELLER - Monday, July 27 2015
think the future looks very bright for those with spinal
cord injuries,” said Peter Wilderotter, the president of
the foundation.
While the patients work toward walking -- and no one
knows if they’ll succeed -- they have already experi-
enced other benefits of the stimulator. Their increased
mobility (they can lift and swing their legs and two can
even do sit-ups) has already improved their health. One
patient, for example, has seen his wildly fluctuating
blood pressure come under control.
All four men say the stimulator has allowed them to
have sex again and has given them dramatically in-
creased control over their bowels and bladder.
“Sure, I’d like to walk someday,” said Kent Stephenson,
one of the study subjects. “But just give me sexual
function and bowel and bladder control -- I’m a happy
camper.”
This isn’t the first time people with paralysis have raised balance.
from their wheelchairs. Since the mid-’90s, Dr. Ronald
Triolo’s team at Case Western Reserve University in
Cleveland has implanted stimulators in the legs and
up. Some have even taken steps.
But according to Triolo, there’s one major difference:
The stimulators he uses “hijack” the muscles and tell
them what to do. The Kentucky researchers put their
stimulators right at the spine, so they affect the central
nervous system. The patients themselves then have
direct control over their muscles, and make them move
on their own.
“The cachet, the unique thing Susie Harkema is doing,
is she’s letting the muscles act naturally rather than
forcing them to act,” said Triolo, a professor of ortho-
pedics and biomedical engineering at Case Western.
“It’s one step closer to more natural function.”
Shillcox, who’s started a foundation to help others af-
fected by paralysis, said he could stand within a month
after receiving his stimulator, but he needed people to
support his hips, which weren’t steady, and his knees,
which sometimes buckled.
Now, after more than two years of practice, he doesn’t
need help from anyone getting up or staying up. He
does, however, have to put his hand on something for
“I’m working on that
so I don’t have to
hang on to anything,”
he said. “The progress might be coming slowly, but we
keep making gains.”
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