In a major breakthrough, 39-year-old Irish athlete Mark Pollock, who lost sight 16 years ago and had been paralyzed from the waist down for last four years, has regained enough voluntary control to move his legs with the help of a robotic exoskeleton known as “Ekso.”
Pollock had lost his sight in 1998 and subsequently went on to become an athlete. He was the first blind man to race to the South Pole, and won medals for Northern Ireland in the Commonwealth Rowing Championships.
It was in 2010 that Pollock fell from a second-story window and broke his spine, which left him paralysed from the waist down. Pollock was unable to walk for the last four years.
Now, a team of scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles have devised a battery-powered wearable bionic suit that enables people to move their legs in small steps.
UCLA scientists reported that using an Ekso suit, Pollok regained sensation and function below his waist and was able to make the move after receiving a few weeks of physical training without spinal stimulation and then just five days of spinal stimulation training in a one-week span, for about an hour a day.
Following this training, the data collected on Pollock showed that he was actively flexing his left knee and raising his left leg. During and after the electrical stimulation, he was able to voluntarily assist the robot during stepping. Furthermore, his leg movements also resulted in other health benefits, including improved cardiovascular function and muscle tone.
“In the last few weeks of the trial, my heart rate hit 138 beats per minute,” Pollock said.
“This is an aerobic training zone, a rate I haven’t even come close to since being paralysed while walking in the robot alone, without these interventions. That was a very exciting, emotional moment for me, having spent my whole adult life before breaking my back as an athlete.”
UCLA claims Pollock is the first person with complete paralysis to regain enough voluntary control to actively work with the device.
The researchers do not describe the achievement as “walking” because no one who is completely paralysed has independently walked in the absence of the robotic device and electrical stimulation of the spinal cord.
“If the robot does all the work, the subject becomes passive and the nervous system shuts down,” said Dr Reggie Edgerton, senior author of the research and a UCLA distinguished professor.
“For people who are severely injured but not completely paralysed, there’s every reason to believe that they will have the opportunity to use these types of interventions to further improve their level of function,” Edgerton said.
The research was recently published and presented at the 37th Annual global Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.
