Paralyzed people will be able to walk thanks to new technology: The patient moves his arms and feels touch
Over the past few years, New York’s largest hospital system, Northwell Health, has been developing bioelectrical technology that allows paralyzed patients to move. Bioelectric technology uses the body’s electrical signals to communicate properly with the nervous system. A paralyzed patient attached to a bioelectrical device can feel it and even move.
The hospital has already seen amazing results.
“We had a patient named Kevin … completely paralyzed from the neck down after jumping into a pool. Because of the technologies we developed at Northwell, for the first time in history, that patient can move his arms… When you touch his arms, he has a sense of touch, which opens up the possibility that paralyzed people will walk again in the years to come.” explained Northwell CEO Michael Dowling.
The ultimate goal is to the device is portable and easy enough to use that the patient can take it anywhere, and not use it only in the hospital laboratory.
Northwell is just one of many healthcare systems in New York City that is turning science fiction into reality.
Paralyzed people, patient (Freepik)
Organ transplantation
Earlier this year, NYU Langone became one of the first hospitals in the world to transplant an animal organ into a human and the first to complete a double transplant that gave a patient an artificial heart and a pig kidney.
The kidney was genetically modified to look more like a human kidney.
Lisa Pisano, a 54-year-old patient of Langone’s, was not a good candidate for a human organ transplant because she struggled with multiple chronic conditions. Doctors believe that the double transplant extended her life.
Meanwhile, a number of New York-based startups are focused on improving the software and technology that doctors rely on to heal patients. New York Post.
Midtown-based Tempus compiles the world’s largest database of clinical and molecular data on sick patients. It analyzes each patient’s diseased cells to help doctors determine which treatments and drugs may be most effective in fighting conditions such as cancer and cardiomyopathies.
Paralyzed people, patient (Freepik)
The patient receives information about medical treatments
Flatiron Health focuses on creating software that connects cancer research institutes around the world to improve communication and enable patients to receive state-of-the-art care while informing physicians about successful treatments used by their colleagues.
Komodoo Health in Flatiron helps patients find the best providers and treatment options and offers a map with detailed information about providers and treatments. These efforts are supported by public investment.
Earlier this week, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the state invests 150 million dollarswhich is the highest of all countries, to the research center for cell and gene therapy on Long Island.
Treatment of the most serious diseases
It’s the latest step in the construction of a $430 million “Innovation Center,” which will focus on gene editing, or mutation correction — the science that promises to one day cure cancer, cystic fibrosis and heart disease.
“We are on the threshold of gene and cell therapy, a revolutionary new form of medical treatment that restores damaged cells and destroys those that have mutated into tumors,” said Hochul.
Dowling, who said he wouldn’t be alive without today’s medical technology, believes innovation has made this the best time in the world to be alive.
“I have a heart condition. I have three stents. If I had the problem I had in the 1970s, I wouldn’t be here now because I had a serious blockage. When I was taken to the hospital ten years ago, within ten minutes they identified the problem, and 40 minutes later I had three stents and was walking out. We are very lucky to live now, because what we can do is much more than we could do 50 years ago,” he explained.
Source: BIZLife
Photo: Freepik
Source: bizlife.rs
