Spine stimulator lets man with severe Parkinson's walk without falling

A man with Parkinson’s disease has experienced a substantial improvement in his ability to walk after being fitted with a device that electrically stimulates his spinal cord. The findings, although based on one person’s experience, suggest this technique could be used widely to treat movement deficits in people with the condition.at the Swiss Federal Insitute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland.

After three months of rehabilitative training using the stimulators, Marc more or less stopped experiencing gait freezing, says Courtine. Marc says that passing through narrow paths or turning as he walked had previously caused gait freezing, which led to him falling five or six times a day. Marc has now been using the stimulator for two years and says he hardly falls at all any more, allowing him to walk several kilometres at a time without a cane or helper.

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