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Trauma injury or Covid outcomes, a “brain” makes walking again

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Trauma injury or Covid outcomes, a “brain” makes walking again

A “brain” to go back to walking and that makes people the protagonists of their own rehabilitation, managing the communication between the central and peripheral nervous systems. The technology was developed by an innovative start-up al Point di Dalmine – used in five important Lombard rehabilitation centers, including the Domus Salutis in Brescia – and will be presented to World Forum for Medicine 2022 scheduled from November 14 in Düsseldorf.

The inventor

Engineer Guido Gabbrielli developed the machine design in collaboration with clinicians. He explains: “We wanted to create a technology that would improve the quality of life of people who, for various reasons, have undergone a paresis. We have therefore developed a method capable of communicating with the central nervous system through the delivery of functional neuromuscular stimuli mixed with active movement. In this context – continues Gabbrielli – the patient plays an active, fundamental role in the rehabilitation process».

There are many devices that are used in neurorehabilitation and that rely on functional electrical stimulation. «The difference of our method is precisely given by the fact that the patient is an active component of the therapeutic exercise and this is aimed at triggering a neuroplasticity mechanism ».

Engineer Gabbrielli speaks with full knowledge of the facts. A few years ago, as he himself says, he suffered a spinal injury following a motorcycle accident. Physical damage that, to date, prevents him from moving completely autonomously. The machine named VIK-16 is unique in its kind because with neural stimulation it leads the patient to move the limbs independently over time, obviously in cases where recovery is possible and not irreversible.

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The innovation

The Domus is one of the centers where the Vik-16 machine is used. Luciano Bissolotti, director of the Department of Recovery and Functional Rehabilitation of the Teresa Camplani Foundation – Nursing Home, talks about it House of Salvation: «The most recent electrostimulation methods applied to the neurorehabilitation sector exploit the combination of currents capable of stimulating and supporting the residual and spontaneous ability of the patient to perform a gesture repeatedly several times. The modern Vik-16 multichannel electrostimulation device is used daily in our nursing home during treatment sessions of the lower and upper limbs in patients with neurological disabilities ».

Features

The innovative rehabilitation machine – Photo taken from the Facebook page

What are the characteristics of the Vik16 device? «Presents an ehigh value of usability and acceptability both in patients with disabilities well known in the rehabilitation sector and in people with neurological syndromes resulting from Covid19. The ability to set up treatment programs capable of involve up to sixteen muscles in a coordinated and sequential way, it allows you to simultaneously set the treatment in unilateral and bilateral modalities, of the upper and lower limbs ».

The movement and electrostimulation programs activate both the components of motor control and those of sensory control. The only combination received by the central nervous system, which stimulates the process of reactivation of the functional capacities lost in patients suffering from trauma or neuromuscular dysfunction.

Complex movements

“Being able to involve up to sixteen muscles can induce complex and refined movements which give great specificity to the rehabilitation treatment – concludes Dr. Luciano Bissolotti -. Using the device and its electrostimulation protocols in patients suffering from outcomes of cerebral stroke, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord trauma, outcomes of nerve injuries or post-Covid peripheral sensory motor polyneuropathies, we realized the high level of acceptability and usability by of the patients involved. The treatment can also be carried out in dynamic conditions, for example by asking the patient to walk, pedal, get up from a chair or take the stairs with the support of the concomitant and synchronous functional electrical stimulation of the Viktor device. A modality that allows to increase the quality and quantity of treatments for each individual patient in rehabilitation ».