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Patients who have been diagnosed paraplegic could show long-term positive results in mobility thanks to interesting therapy partners: robots and brain machine interfaces.
Research published by Nature has shown that long-term training with brain machine interfaces on patients who have suffered a spinal cord injury could result in positive effects. The research was conducted by an international group of scientists, led by Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University.
The program--dubbed the Walk Again Neurorehabilitation (WA-NR) protocol--had participants start small and work their way up. The 8 patients ranged in their condition from having been paralyzed for three years to 13 years. The first step of the WA-NR protocol was to control a 3-D avatar on a screen using their imagination. Patients would move the avatar by imagining their arms or legs moving.
Later in the program they would use a robotic gait trainer in a similar fashion. Participants would be hooked up to the trainer and would imagine taking steps. The brain-controlled robotic exoskeleton would respond to those thoughts. Participants also used a traditional robotic gait trainer throughout the program duration.
By the end of the study, researchers found that a mixture of robotic and traditional movement therapy could significantly improve patients’ recovery.
