Nathan Copeland hasn’t been able to move his legs or hands since he broke his neck in a car accident more than a decade ago. But now that scientists have implanted four chips in his brain, Copeland can control a robotic arm with his mind and feel when someone touches its fingers. This is the…
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MetroHealth has long been known as one of the best rehab centers for spinal cord injuries. As part of the Cleveland FES Center the researchers, engineers and clinicians are on the cutting edge of research. But for dozens of spinal cord patients who don’t live in Northeast Ohio, the dream of accessing that research is often logistically out…
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Tue, 05/31/2016 – 11:54am by American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation A surgically implanted neuroprosthesis—programmed to stimulate coordinated activity of hip, knee, and ankle muscles—has led to substantial improvement in walking speed and distance in a patient with limited mobility after a stroke, according to a single-patient study in the American Journal of Physical…
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Seconds after a brief smile of anticipation flashed across her face, Jan Scheuermann moved a bar of chocolate toward her mouth by controlling a robotic prosthetic arm. Finally, she took a bite. As she relished the taste, the team of neuroscientists and engineers in the room erupted in applause. It was no small feat for…
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After doctors bridge his spinal injury with electronics, a paralyzed man can control his arm with his thoughts. Scientists at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio say they’ve used electronics to get around a paralyzed man’s spinal injury, permitting him to use an implant in his brain to move his arm and hand. Read more…
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At the age of 26, Jennifer French’s life changed after suffering injury to her spinal cord in a snowboard accident. 2 years after becoming a quadriplegic, she found help at the Cleveland FES Center where she became part of a neurotechnology study. Watch the video…
We have the technology to dramatically increase the independence of people with spinal-cord injuries. The problem is bringing it to market and keeping it there. One night in 1982, John Mumford was working on an avalanche patrol on an icy Colorado mountain pass when the van carrying him and two other men slid off the…
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On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, God reaches out to touch Adam. The eye locks on the small gap between their index fingers, a slice of space dividing the ethereal from man. A similar gap challenges researchers who work with paralyzed or handicapped patients — how to synch the human brain with a machine…
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Technology reconnects amputees to the world of sensation A team of scientists led by Dustin Tyler from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio is reporting a breakthrough that might soon enhance the lives of amputees around the world. They have developed a system of electrodes and algorithms that has successfully enabled people to ‘feel’ through…
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Igor Spetic was blindfolded in the test as he moved his prosthetic hand across a table as he attempted to pick up cubes about the size of walnuts. But he could not feel the cubes because he was working with the artificial hand to which he had been fitted. However, when engineers turned on a…
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Prosthetic limbs have long been clunky, acting more as appendages than extensions. But modern technology is now helping amputees rediscover their sense of touch. Miles O’Brien, who lost his own arm in an accident last year, takes a look at new advances in the field. Watch the video on PBS.org
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Case Western Reserve University researchers who helped restore a sense of touch to amputees in a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs lab in Cleveland are finalizing contract negotiations for a $4.4 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to speed development of a mobile system amputees can use anywhere. Read the full…
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Veterans with prosthetic hands could someday regain their sense of touch thanks to a new DARPA initiative. It’s called the Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) program, and the goal is to let amputees “feel” objects with technology that would send signals back and forth between the brain and artificial hand. Read the full article
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Cleveland, OH – October 29, 2014 State of the FES Center 2014 presented by Robert F. Kirsch, PhD, Executive Director Click here to download the full presentation.
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Cathy Hutchinson demonstrates thought-relaying technology that allows her to take a sip of coffee
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Chronic pain, hearing loss, sleep apnea, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, paralysis from stroke or spinal cord injury.
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MIT Technology Review: Hunter Peckham, the Donnell Institute Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering
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When you prick your finger, what you feel is a consequence of activity in the brain, not the finger itself. Biomedical engineers using this concept are leading an evolution in protheses that help the estimated 2 million Americans who suffer from limb loss to “feel” their missing limbs again. This emerging field of devices for…
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In the future, a woman with a spinal cord injury could make a full recovery; a baby with a weak heart could pump his own blood. How close are we today to the bold promise of bionics—and could this technology be used to improve normal human functions, as well as to repair us? Join Bill…
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As a result of a snowboarding accident, Jennifer French became a quadriplegic from a C6-7 incomplete spinal cord injury in 1998. She is an active user of Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) systems. In November 1999, she received the Implantable Stand & Transfer System provided by the Cleveland FES Center, MetroHealth Medical Center and Veterans Affairs;…
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Imagine enjoying a sunny day on the slopes, sliding down the side of a mountain on your snowboard. One moment you’re feeling free and in control – the next, you’ve hit a patch of ice and careened into a stand of trees. That’s the last thing entrepreneur, paralympian and quadriplegic Jennifer French remembers before waking…
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Dustin Tyler, associate professor of biomedical engineering, is a co-lead investigator on a team that received a $199,913 grant from the Rehabilitation Research and Development (RRD) Service Small Projects in Rehabilitation Research (SPiRE) program to develop advanced in-line connectors. In the study, “In-Line 32-Channel Connector for High-Density Implantable Medical Device,” Tyler and Douglas Shire attempt…
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Igor Spetic’s hand was in a fist when it was severed by a forging hammer three years ago as he made an aluminum jet part at his job. For months afterward, he felt a phantom limb still clenched and throbbing with pain. “Some days it felt just like it did when it got injured,” he…
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Recent years have brought huge advances in prosthetics, but there is still much work to be done in replicating the intricacy of the human hand. Scientists have developed ways to let patients control prosthetic limbs with their existing nerves, but that communication is only one way — the prosthetic hasn’t been able to send anything back.…
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