Industry: Medical and research
Platform: SciChart WPF
Paralysis was once considered an irreversible condition, with a fixed prognosis: if your spinal cord was damaged, recovery was impossible. However, groundbreaking medical research, supported by advanced real-time medical data visualization tools like SciChart, is proving that even severe spinal injuries can be recoverable. A pioneering system now enables patients to not only walk again, but also perform athletic activities like cycling and canoeing.
This article delves into the incredible story behind this breakthrough: a joint collaboration between professors of neurological science, the NeuroRestore treatment center, and SciChart’s high-performance medical charting software. Discover how cutting-edge technology and innovative research helped paralyzed patients achieve mobility after just one day of treatment.
NeuroRestore: Their Incredible Story
NeuroRestore is an innovative treatment center in Switzerland specializing in treatments for restoring neurological functions in patients with spinal cord injuries. The hypotheses, research, and subsequent treatments were the brainchild of professors of neurological science, Grégoire Courtine and Jocelyne Bloch.
The Challenge: Finding the Cure for Paralysis
The aim was to reduce the time it takes to walk again after a spinal cord injury from months of training to a single day.
From a technical standpoint, it was important to find a way to facilitate real-time data stability in the charting software. This would support the rapid configuration of stimulation programs that reproduced the natural activation of motor neurons underlying each activity.
It was thought that by targeting the nerves responsible for signalling leg and trunk movements to the central nervous system (dorsal roots), more diverse motor activities could be restored, even after the most severe spinal cord injury.
The treatment involved reproducing the natural activation pattern of motor neurons during walking. For this, the positioning of the paddle leads and optimal arrangement of electrodes would be crucial, and plenty of computational experiments later, the right position was determined.
Essentially, the research team needed to demonstrate that the new arrangement of electrodes enhanced the coverage of epidural electrical stimulation (EES) compared to leads originally designed for pain treatment.
The Outcome: Pioneering Patient Recovery
How did the neurological research by Grégoire Courtine and Jocelyne Bloch lead to curing the impossible? Let’s look at their incredible journey and how SciChart’s high-performance precision medical charting software played a role in creating a cure for paralysis.
After a sports injury, David Mzee was left paralyzed from a spinal cord injury. In 2018, he was able to walk with assistance. The science that led to this major breakthrough used electrical stimulation to reactivate spinal neurons.
This may sound like something straight out of a science fiction story, especially when you consider that the spinal implants are AI-controlled. However, with the help of sophisticated algorithms, AI software, and implants placed beneath the vertebrae, three paralyzed patients have been able to walk again. In fact, participants could produce up to 300 independent steps as early as the first day of stimulation.
We also equipped the assistive devices with ergonomic clickers that trigger epidural electrical stimulation (EES) programs upon desire.
Described as a ‘wireless digital bridge’, the system re-establishes communication between the brain and the function that the damaged spine once served, i.e., the ability to move the body and perform activities. Electrical signals effectively replace the former function that the brain would perform to enable walking and movement that involves the legs and core muscles.
Moves are being made to make the digital bridge available commercially around the world. Further applications of this new medical technology include assisting patients with Parkinson’s or recovering from the after-effects of a stroke.
The Solution: Superfast Medical Data Visualizations
The team at NeuroRestore leveraged SciChart’s superfast medical charting software to visualize and interpret the live synaptic data to bridge spinal injuries.
SciChart’s superfast charting software helped medical researchers visualize in real time the synaptic signal from the brain up to the break. Mapping the data enabled an identical signal to be retransmitted following the break. SciChart handled these real-time signals with enough precision to isolate the signals, reproduce, and modulate.
For effective treatment, concurrent stimulation waveforms needed to be turned on and off with precise timing. To simplify these configurations, wireless recordings of kinematics and muscle activity were displayed in real time with epidural electrical stimulation (EES) waveforms. The upgraded implantable pulse generator (IPG) with wireless communication supported real-time updates of EES frequency, amplitude, and timing from up to 10 stimulation waveforms.
We were proud to play a part in this groundbreaking research with wide-ranging future applications to recover patients with paralysis as well as neurological disorders due to a stroke, brain injury, or Parkinson’s disease.
Why SciChart’s Medical Charting Software?
In our clinical studies, NeuroRestore frequently needed to simultaneously monitor signals from up to 16 EMG sensors while tracking the profile of the epidural stimulation being delivered. As the only high-performance 64-bit library, SciChart offered both the precision and performance to handle the task of reliably displaying the real-time data points from the sensors.
“SciChart’s speed and thorough documentation have been crucial in advancing our therapy’s development, enabling us to efficiently monitor a large number of physiological signals concurrently without system slowdowns.”Charles David Sasportes,
CHUV | Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University Hospital Lausanne
EPFL | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne
UNIL | Faculty of Medicine and Biology, University of Lausanne
SciChart’s Work in Medical Research
SciChart is proud to facilitate pioneering medical research around the world. From helping paralyzed individuals walk again to producing an epilepsy monitor app, individuals looking to build the next breakthrough in medical technology and systems that enhance and even save lives know they can rely on SciChart to deliver consistent real-time data performance with WPF Charts.
Visit our website to discover what our cross-platform WPF, JavaScript, Android and iOS chart library could do for your health data visualization projects. Essentially, SciChart offers the flexibility, customizations, and features needed to create bespoke medical dashboards.
