Functional Electrical Stimulation

Learn about exciting and promising research that shows how Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) can be used to cause muscles to contract—providing movement for a person with paralysis from spinal cord injury or stroke. FES can also help to re-train weak muscles or the central nervous system.

A new treatment approach which uses tiny bursts of electricity to reawaken paralyzed muscles “significantly” reduced disability and improved grasping in people with incomplete spinal cord injuries, beyond the effects of standard therapy, newly published research shows.

Watch a video of the amazing improvements achieved by Lorraine and
George using FES.

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Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory:

 

Dr. Milos R. Popovic and Toronto Rehab’s Neural Engineering and Therapeutics Team have developed a way to use the brain’s ‘neuroplasticity’—the remarkable ability to adapt and perform new tasks, even after an injury—to help stroke and spinal cord injury survivors to restore their ability to grasp, reach or walk.

 

A Toronto Rehab start-up company called Simple Solutions is working to commercialize a stimulator device used to reawaken paralyzed muscles. The device is designed to help people paralyzed from stroke and spinal cord injury to regain the ability to reach, grasp and walk.

 

As a result of new research using FES (functional electrical stimulation), scientists and therapists at Toronto Rehab are witnessing incredible potential for helping some people stand, and in some cases walk, following a spinal cord injury. It’s all a matter of stimulating the correct nerves in the right order.

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Injury or disease can rob people of their ability to stand and walk on their own. Can scientists create a device, as simple to put on as a pair of trousers that would allow people to stand or even walk again? Developing such a device is a major engineering challenge—one that Toronto Rehab’s Dr. Kei Masani is on the way to solving.

2010                            Source: Toronto Rehab +9 Report on Rehabilitation Research,

Canadian Living reported that scientists in this country are at the forefront of research aimed at reversing permanent damage from spinal cord injuries. The article cited work by Toronto Rehab senior scientist Dr. Milos Popovic, who is using a technique that stimulates nerves with electrical impulses to reawaken paralyzed muscles.

Working with several therapists at Toronto Rehab, DeFranco began to regain the use of his legs. But, unable to use his hands, he agreed to participate in a pilot study aimed at stimulating paralyzed hands to grasp objects again.

What could be simpler than standing? For some people with spinal cord injuries, almost anything. But a team of researchers headed by Toronto Rehab senior scientist Dr. Milos Popovic is working to help paralyzed people stand again.

Dr. Popovic and colleagues have refined FES in such a way that after many repetitions, some patients − like Haddad − learn to carry out the movements by themselves, without the device.

A pocket-sized machine that delivers small burst of muscle-stimulating electricity is producing big gains in mobility for a growing number of people paralyzed from stroke and spinal cord injury.