Servebolt.com | Amazingly fast managed web-hostingStrokes, or cerebrovascular accidents, often begin with a seemingly innocuous symptom: Fatigue. The patient will then want to find a bed to lie down on. They fall asleep without knowing a very harmful process is going on inside their brains.
A blood clot, dilated or leaky artery is blocking blood from being pumped to a specific area of the brain. When the brain tissues there don’t get oxygen and nutrients, they start to die after just a few minutes.
Every year around the world, more than 6.5 million people have a stroke and don’t wake up from their sleep. About 10 million people may be lucky enough to survive, but the sequelae left behind are often overwhelming.
90% of stroke survivors will be paralyzed to some degree: half of the face, one arm or even half of the body – Photo: Internet.
Previously, patients with stroke paralysis who did not recover after 6 months would be considered permanently paralyzed. But now, that has changed – Photo VTV.
90% of stroke survivors will be paralyzed to some degree: half of the face, one arm or even half of the body.
Six months is a milestone for them to try to salvage their movements with medication, rehabilitation sessions or traditional medicine like acupuncture. If those 6 months don’t work, unfortunately, the doctors will have to inform the patient that they are permanently paralyzed.
But now, things may change 180 degrees. Handbooks containing the prognosis for stroke recovery will have to be rewritten, thanks to a new study published in the journal Nature Medicine:
For the first time, doctors were able to restore mobility to a patient paralyzed by a stroke, even though she had lost control of one arm for nearly 10 years.
The milestone was established with a nerve implant procedure – inserting a spaghetti-long electrode inside the spinal cord. The electrode reconnects nerve pathways that have been disrupted by stroke damage, giving the 33-year-old back a part of a normal life she thought she would never have again.
The study authors say the story certainly doesn’t stop there. This neural implant technology will offer hope to millions of other stroke-paralyzed patients around the world who are also struggling with their daily lives.
Heather Rendulic regained control of her left arm at the age of 33, 10 years after being paralyzed by a stroke in 2012. – University of Pittsburgh photo.
10 years of living with one hand in the world of two-handed people
It was 2011, American girl Heather Rendulic woke up at the age of 23 with a tingling sensation on the left side of her body. Realizing it was an abnormal sign, Heather went to the hospital for a checkup, where doctors noticed on an MRI that a blood vessel in her brain was bulging.
They call it a cavernous angioma, which compresses the bottom of the skull and causes Heather’s mild stroke. Since the numbness on the left side of her body had disappeared, the doctors did not want to operate.
Heather thought she could go home and live a normal life. Many patients with cavernous hemangiomas manage their condition stably for decades. But that luck did not happen to Heather.
In 2012 alone, her blood vessels in her brain leaked five times. It again creates new strokes. Eventually, a severe brain hemorrhage left Heather paralyzed on the left side of her body.
Heather in hospital in December 2012, after having brain surgery. That was the time when she was completely paralyzed on the left side – Photo Facebook character.
Doctors operated on her brain to remove the aneurysm. But like many other stroke patients, Heather did not fully regain her mobility.
Her left leg recovered, but her left hand and arm were permanently unable to lift. Six months of failed rehabilitation forced Heather to adjust to her new life.
“I had to live with one hand in the world of two-handed people“, Heather said. She couldn’t chop fruit or vegetables without tools. Dressing was also becoming extremely difficult. Heather could not tie her own shoelaces and could not open bottles.
Originally an independent person, she was tired of having to depend on her husband for her life now. Even cutting a steak required him to make Heather very depressed.
Rehabilitation helped her regain the ability to move her legs, but her left hand and arm have not recovered. – Character Facebook photo.
“For many people, the arms and hands are the hardest part of recovering from a stroke, and they tend to be the slowest.“, said Dr. Elliot Roth, attending physician at AbilityLab Brain Center.
Apart from rehabilitation, it is nearly impossible for doctors to provide any effective treatment for this paralysis. The condition in her left arm that hadn’t improved in nearly 10 years made Heather think she might have lost it forever.
But a new technology has changed that
In 2021, Heather Rendulic’s medical records were reviewed by a team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh. They invited her to participate in a small trial of a technology called spinal electrical stimulation.
This technology has previously been shown to restore mobility to patients paralyzed by spinal cord injuries. Specifically, it has helped some patients with lower limb paralysis recover and walk again.
However, spinal cord magnetic stimulation implants have never been used in stroke and upper extremity paralysis patients. It’s new land that scientists at the University of Pittsburgh want to explore, and they want Heather to help them do it.
At the age of 33, she was promised that the test would bring mobility to her left arm, which had been paralyzed for 10 years. Heather hesitated but agreed in the end, picking up a hope that she considered very slim.
A minor surgery was then performed. To create electrical stimulation, doctors implanted in Heather’s cervical spine two strips of electrodes as thin as spaghetti strands.
They have eight contacts that connect to the nerves that run down her left arm and hand, respectively. The system is connected to an electrical stimulator in the laboratory, in conjunction with other cables routed outside the skin of Heather’s hand.
This is the first time that a spinal cord magnetic stimulation implant has never been used in stroke and upper limb paralysis patients. – University of Pittsburgh photo.
Marco Capogrosso, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh, said the approach stems from the fact that during a stroke, certain areas of a patient’s nerves remain intact and undamaged. .
If spinal cord electrical stimulation technology can be used to amplify the signals traveling from the hand to this area, there is a chance Heather and other patients’ mobility will be restored.
The electrical stimulation itself doesn’t control movement, they do their job as a trigger, allowing the patient to use his or her own thoughts to re-direct the paralyzed arm, says Associate Professor Capogrosso.
“This is a circuit-appropriate technology that helps people regain movement completely voluntarily“.
Results in the first electrical stimulation, Heather gives bI know it worked:”I sat in the chair, the doctors asked me to open my hand and then hold it, a really difficult task for me. But immediately I did.”
Her husband and mother Heather witnessed the moment. “We were all in tears,” she said. “It was like my brain had found my left arm again, something I hadn’t been able to do in over nine years.”
Heather Rendulic in the experiment regained the ability to grip in her left hand by electrical stimulation of the spinal cord.- Video: University of Pittsburgh.
During the next four weeks of training, Heather was given more challenging tasks by the researchers, while spinal cord electrodes continuously stimulated her nerves.
Heather’s progress is recorded day by day, she begins to be able to grasp objects, move them, open locks, draw pictures on paper… With an experiment involving arranging objects in boxes , when the electrical stimulation is turned off, Heather can only gain 6 points with the 6 target objects she needs to move. But when the device was turned on, she scored 14.
During the entire recovery, she felt no pain or discomfort – aside from a tingling sensation similar to that of a tickle. Scientists have concluded this is a very safe method and Heather is gradually regaining the ability to move her arm.
The price of treatment starts from about 350 million VND
Regrettably, the protocol of this initial experiment only allowed Heather to retain the electrodes for 29 days. Doctors will then help her remove them from her spinal cord.
At first, they thought this would end the miracle Heather received. But surprisingly, her left arm mobility was maintained. “We think it’s impossible“, said Dr Elvira Pirondini, study co-author.
It is possible that this method is also serving as rehabilitation treatments for patients, only it is done more directly, by stimulating electrical currents into the very neural pathways connecting the brain. her feet, spinal cord, and arms.
“We’re not creating new nerve fibers for her, but we’re certainly reinforcing the neural pathways she preserved after the stroke. [dù nó đã xảy ra cách đây gần 10 năm]”said Associate Professor Capogrosso.
The technology that Heather Rendulic is implanted with has a starting price of 350 million VND. – Photo: University of Pittsburgh
Agreeing with him, Daniel Lu, a neurosurgeon at the University of California, who is also conducting another independent spinal cord stimulation study, said: The technology is offering promise for patients paralyzed by a stroke, but still partially preserved nerve tissue.
“The less a patient suffers from deterioration of nerve tissue, the better the chance of returning to normal function“, he said.
However, the cost of this transplant will prevent some patients from accessing it. Specifically, Dr. Daniel said spinal stimulators currently cost between $15,000 and $50,000 (equivalent to 350 million to 1.2 billion VND).
Also, because the electrodes run on batteries, they will have to be replaced every five to 10 years, meaning patients will need to have surgery again within that time.
The treatment is also not without risks. Complications from this operation include infection, the electrode wire can break or get out of place, causing damage to the surrounding tissue.
For the first time in 10 years, Heather Rendulic can cut a steak herself. Photo: University of Pittsburgh.
Despite that, Heather represents patients who say she’s willing to make a trade-off. Before the day when the device had to be removed from her spinal cord, Heather threatened the doctors that she would not go to the hospital to give them a chance to have it retracted: “TI want to wear it for the rest of my life.”
“At least it helped me cut my own steak and that was great”. That moment was the first time Heather didn’t need Mark, the husband she still calls her left hand who has helped her cut steaks for 10 years.
Now, Heather can hold a fork in her left hand, skewer the meat, and bring it to her mouth. She smiled slightly as she enjoyed the steak, placed her free right hand over her heart and gave a thumbs up in appreciation of its deliciousness.
Reference Sciencealert, Wired, Nytimes, Nature, Hopkinsmedicine
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