Study: Electrical Medical Device Helps Improve Muscle Strength

01Researchers recently reported new evidence from a study of a medical device placed inside the body, a spine-stimulating implant.

02Three people with a muscle-destroying disease got a little stronger after using the implant.

03They were able to stand and walk more easily because of electrical stimulation to their spinal cord.

04Marco Capogroso is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, or Pitt, who led the research.

05These people were definitely not expecting an improvement, he said.

06Capogroso said they were getting better and better over the study that lasted one month.

07The implant was able to return some muscle function, at least temporarily.

08The implant was already being tested to treat paralysis in other patients.

09This new evidence suggests it might also aid diseases of the nervous system, like spinal muscle atrophy, or SMA.

10SMA is a genetic disease that slowly destroys motor neurons, nerve cells in the spinal cord that control muscles.

11That leads muscles to waste away, especially in the legs, hips, and shoulders, and sometimes those involved with breathing and swallowing.

12There is no cure.

13A gene therapy can save the lives of very young children with a severe form of the disease, and there are some medicines to slow the disease in older patients.

14Stimulating the spinal cord with low levels of electricity has long been used to treat chronic or long-term pain.

15Capogroso's team also has tested it to help people paralyzed by strokes or spinal cord injury move their arms and legs with assistance.

16The system sends electrical signals to nerves that have stopped reacting.

17This has the effect of activating the muscles.

18Capogroso wondered if that same technology might help patients with SMA by stimulating sensory nerves to signal damaged muscle cells, causing them to move.

19The researchers at the University of Pittsburgh published their study in Nature Medicine.

20They implanted electrodes over the lower spinal cord of the three adults with SMA.

21Using the device did not return normal movement, but with a few hours of spinal stimulation a week, all soon experienced improvements in muscle strength and function, the researchers wrote.

2257-year-old Doug McCullough took part in the study.

23With a progressive disease, you never get any better, he said, adding, So having any improvement is just a really surreal and very exciting benefit.

24All three subjects increased how far they could walk in six minutes by the study's end.

25Capogroso said they could walk farther because they got less tired, and even a person this many years into the disease can improve.

26Researchers found the improvements did not disappear as soon as the stimulator was turned off, but they did decrease a few months after the study ended.

27Neuroscientist Susan Harkma led similar studies of stimulation for spinal cord injuries while at the University of Louisville.

28She warned that the new study is small and did not last very long, but said it was an important test of the device.

29She said it should be tested next with other muscle-degenerating diseases.

30Capogroso said some small but longer studies are beginning.

31I'm Dorothy Gundy.