In a groundbreaking medical advancement, the first patient undergoing spinal implant surgery described the experience as a "rebirth" after the treatment enabled him to walk again for long distances, having been deprived of movement by Parkinson's disease. Marc, a 63-year-old French citizen, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s over 20 years ago and has since suffered from severe mobility issues, including balance problems and an inability to walk.
After undergoing the spinal implant procedure, aimed at restoring the natural signals from the spinal cord to the leg muscles, he is now able to walk normally. Marc recounted his experience with the illness to The Guardian: "Practically, I could no longer walk without falling several times a day. Right now, I am no longer afraid of climbing stairs. Every Sunday, I go to the lake and walk about 6 kilometers. It’s incredible."
The implant procedure has not yet been tested in a full clinical trial. However, the Swiss team, which has a long-term program for developing brain-machine interfaces to overcome paralysis, hopes that their technology will provide a completely new approach to treating motor impairment in patients with Parkinson's disease. Jocelyne Bloch, a neurosurgeon and professor at Harvard Medical School, stated, "It is impressive to see how, by electrically stimulating the spinal cord in a targeted way, similarly to what we have done with patients with paraplegia, we can correct walking disorders caused by Parkinson's disease."
