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HEALTH

Progress for paralyzed patients: First implanted device is

placed to restore arm, hand and finger movement
Onward, a medical technology company in the Netherlands, successfully placed the implant in a 46-year-old paralyzed
man
By Melissa Rudy Fox News

Published September 28, 2023 5:25am EDT

AI paralyzed man walking

Gert-Jan Oskam, paralyzed for 12 years, is able to walk again thanks to the brain-spine "digital bridge" interface developed at France's Atomic Energy
Commission (CEA). SOURCE: EPFL / CHUV via Reuters

For the first time ever, a human has successfully received an implanted device to enable
movement of the arms, hands and fingers after a paralyzing spinal cord injury .

Onward Medical NV, a medical technology company based in the Netherlands, announced
on Wednesday the surgical implant of its ARC-IM Stimulator, which is designed to restore
function to the upper extremities of paralyzed patients.

The patient, a 46-year-old man suffered a spinal cord injury nearly two years ago, which
,

left his left side almost fully paralyzed, doctors told Fox News Digital.

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The ARC-IM implantation took place on Aug. 14 at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois
(CHUV) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

During the procedure, the surgeon, Switzerland-based Dr. Jocelyne Bloch, placed
electrodes over the man’s cervical spinal cord.

Switzerland-based neurosurgeon Dr. Jocelyne Bloch performed both surgeries. The procedures went smoothly, she told
Fox News Digital. (NeuroRestore)

"There are a total of 32 electrodes that are linked to two different pacemakers," she told
Fox News Digital in an interview. "There are two neurostimulators that are able to produce
electricity and give impulses to the spinal cord to activate the muscles of the arm."

Nine days later, in a follow-up procedure, a wireless brain-computer interface (BCI) was
implanted.

"We did a very small craniotomy, which means we removed a bit of bone and replaced it

with 64 electrodes," Bloch said.

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Working in tandem with the stimulator, the BCI uses artificial intelligence to connect the
brain and spinal cord, the company stated in a press release — essentially capturing the
intentions of the paralyzed person, "decoding" those thoughts and then stimulating the
spinal cord to convert them into actions.

Professor Grégoire Courtine is a co-director of NeuroRestore, a Switzerland-based research, innovation and treatment
center that coordinates neurosurgical interventions to restore neurological functions. (NeuroRestore)

The successful surgery has been 20 years in the making, noted Professor Grégoire
Courtine, co-director of NeuroRestore, a Switzerland-based research, innovation and
treatment center that coordinates neurosurgical interventions to restore neurological
functions.

NeuroRestore has worked in partnership with Onward throughout this study.

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"When you want to move part of your body, the brain has to send a command to that
region to activate the muscles," Courtine told Fox News Digital in an interview. "When
there's a spinal cord injury, this communication is interrupted. The consequence is
paralysis of the limbs."

With this implant surgery, Courtine said, "We are establishing this communication with a
digital bridge that turns thoughts into actions."

For the first time ever, a human being has received an implanted device to enable movement of the arms, hands and fingers
after a paralyzing spinal cord injury. (iStock)

The procedures both went smoothly, the doctors agreed.

Although it’s still too early to provide full results, Bloch said the technology works as
expected and appears to "successfully reanimate the patient's paralyzed arms, hands and
fingers."

gradual thing," she noted. "It’s too early to tell how long it will take — we will be much
"It’s a
more knowledgeable in a few months. But it’s not instant — it requires some training."

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Courtine is optimistic, as he said the devices are "fulfilling expectations" and the
stimulation "works very effectively."

This news comes just a few months after Onward’s May announcement that its ARC-IM
and BCI implant had enabled a patient to gain "augmented control" over movement of his
paralyzed legs.

worked for walking, and so we decided to apply exactly the same technology for hand
"It
movement," Bloch said.

Onward Medical NV, a medical technology company based in the Netherlands, announced on Wednesday the surgical
implant of its ARC-IM Stimulator, which is designed to restore function to the upper extremities of paralyzed patients.
(Onward Medical)

In the coming months, Onward expects to share more information about the surgery and
the results in a peer-reviewed publication.

"At this stage, the technology is very experimental," Courtine noted.

Years of large-scale clinical trials will need to be completed — and most likely, it won’t be
until the end of the decade when this technology is widely available, he said.

"As the unit will possess learning

capacity, the patient’s brain will also
‘learn’ to use the device to its fullest
capacity."

Every year, around the world, between 250,000 and 500,000 people suffer a spinal cord
injury, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Most of these are due to trauma during which a segment of the spinal cord is injured or
severed, resulting in neurologic problems at and below the level of the injury, according to
Dr. Brett Osborn, a neurosurgeon who practices in Florida (He was not involved in .

Onward’s study or the surgery.)

Dr. Brett Osborn is a neurosurgeon and longevity expert who practices in Florida. As Osborn explained, Onward’s
technology aims to reestablish the connection between the brain and the nerve roots, bypassing or bridging the level of the
spinal cord injury. (Dr. Brett Osborn)

"The spinal cord is mostly a bundle of nerve fibers that descend from the brain like wires,"
he said. "If you cut or damage the cables, everything below the injury malfunctions. In a
human, this manifests as weakness or paralysis."

He added, "But what if there was a way to ‘bypass’ the injured region of the spinal cord and
directly stimulate the nerve cells that interface with the axons at every spinal level? This is
precisely what Onward is attempting to do."

As Osborn explained, Onward’s technology aims to reestablish the connection between

the brain and the nerve roots, bypassing or bridging the level of the spinal cord injury.

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"The wiring is not being repaired — that’s many years in the future. But this is a fancy
workaround utilizing state-of-the-art implant technology and AI," he said.

Echoing Bloch’s and Courtine’s earlier comments, Osborn noted that restoring movement
will require a cooperative effort between the patient and the implanted unit.

"There are a total of 32 electrodes that are linked to two different pacemakers," the surgeon told Fox News Digital during an
interview. (Onward Medical)

"As the unit will possess learning capacity, the patient’s brain will also ‘learn’ to use the
device to its fullest capacity," he said. "It will be akin to learning a new skill — to juggle, for
example."

"The brain makes the necessary changes at the cellular level to produce the motor
patterns needed to successfully coordinate the rhythmic tossing of the balls, or, in this
case, make a muscle."

"Our nervous system is the most

complex object in the universe."

our friend here — without which spinal cord-injured patients have little hope," Osborn
"AI is
added. "After all, our nervous system is the most complex object in the universe."

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Dr.Harvey Castro, an emergency medicine physician in Coppell, Texas , is also a consultant

and speaker on AI in health care.

"As an ER doctor with two decades of experience in patient care, I find the first in-human
implant of ONWARD® Medical's ARC-IM Stimulator with a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)
to be a significant milestone in spinal cord injury treatment," he told Fox News Digital.

"However, as with any groundbreaking technology, ethical considerations, pros, cons and
unknowns should be scrutinized."

Harvey Castro, an emergency medicine physician in Coppell, Texas, is also a consultant and speaker on AI in health care.
"As with any groundbreaking technology, ethical considerations, pros, cons and unknowns should be scrutinized," he said of
Onward's tech. (Dr. Harvey Castro)

Among ethical considerations, Castro emphasized the need to clarify the informed
consent of potential risks and benefits, data privacy measures and accessibility of the
technology.

He also pointed out that many unknown factors remain, specifically in terms of safety
concerns, long-term effectiveness and potential interference with other bodily functions or
existing medical devices.

"While this technology heralds a promising future for SCI patients, rigorous clinical trials,
ethical safeguards and long-term studies are essential for its validation and broader
application," Castro concluded.

For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health .

Melissa Rudy is health editor and a member of the lifestyle team at Fox News Digital.

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