By: Jonathan Lehman/Meredith Ganzman
He’s a walking miracle.
A paralyzed man is making an incredible recovery and walking on his own thanks to a groundbreaking spinal cord implant developed by a Swiss research institute.
Paraplegic patient David M’Zee, a 30-year-old Swiss man who was once told by doctors after a sports injury that he would never walk again, has trekked more than a half a mile following the promising surgery and therapy.
“One of the key moments was when I started walking hands-free on the treadmill,” M’Zee said. “Really letting the bars go and do one, two, three steps without using my hands was really crazy because I just couldn’t do it before.”
The process is called epidural electrical stimulation. Essentially, a wireless device is implanted that precisely mimics the electrical communication between the brain and leg muscles via the spinal cord that is interrupted after a spinal cord injury.
“This surgery needed to be very precise in order to target all the muscles of the legs,” said Jocelyne Bloch, a neurosurgeon at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne who was one of the researchers on the study. “So for me it was amazing to work with a team of engineers who came with their cutting-edge technology to guide my surgery.”
Two other patients with chronic paraplegia who participated in the study were able to walk over ground following surgery and treatment. The patients were even able to control previously paralyzed leg muscles in the absence of the electrical stimulation, after a few months of training. The device is also reportedly helping to repair injured nerve cells in the spine.