By Larry Fox
The secret of lasting science fiction is that it somehow manages to anticipate actual discoveries years in the future.
A hundred years after Dr. Jekyll turned himself into Mr. Hyde, scientists discovered that mental illness really is most often caused by a chemical imbalance and can be treated by medication.
Many years after the Frankenstein monster was brought to life by a bolt of lightning, modern defibrillators achieve the same results for heart attack victims.
Today, a more contemporary example. Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man of television, was mechanically reconstituted after a horrendous accident, if memory serves. But naturally with superhuman strength.
Now, as those attending a series of presentations sponsored by the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Cape and Islands in Sandwich April 7 have learned, we’re not that far from creating this reality as well.
“I have a real sense of loss,” Yitzhak Zilberman, president and CEO of Bioness, Inc., of Santa Clarita, California, confessed in an interview. “Three years ago I visited Christopher Reeve and he asked me, ‘When do I get my implants?’”
Soon, was not soon enough.
Reeve, the actor who portrayed Superman, since has died from complications following years as a quadriplegic from a horseback accident.
While too late for Reeve, the bion® microstimulator designed to help others with paralysis looms in the foreseeable future. And Mr. Zilberman pulled out his key-ring from which dangled two of the slender inch-long implants.
“These microsimulators would be inserted into the body with a syringe to create a wireless network. They will be programmed to work in concert to reanimate paralyzed muscles,” Mr. Zilberman explained.
“The first applications in rehabilitation could be for shoulder subluxation (dislocation) and for bowel and bladder control for those with spinal cord injury,” he continued, “and we’re in the process of preparing an FDA (Food and Drug Administration) application for review.”
The ultimate application to overcome the effects of spinal cord injuries would seem to duplicate one of the hoped-for benefits from spinal cord research.
“Ours is a different treatment,” Mr. Zilberman said, adding, “Stem cell research could make what we do obsolete, which is a good thing.”
Bioness Vice President Todd Cushman said. “We hope they do get there, but they’re a long ways away.”
Mr. Cushman estimates stem cell applications could take perhaps a dozen years to develop; plus scientists have to contend with ethical questions being raised from some quarters and any process “will be costly.”
Two issues ago, To Your Good Health, a Health Care Newsletter, devoted space to the innovative NESS H200, a device using electrical impulses to speed recovery of hand function following neurological damage most often due to stroke and brain injury.
RHCI was the first hospital in New England to offer the H200 and it is now being used regularly with great success. The next step is the L300, which, in Mr. Cushman’s words, “will do for the lower extremities what the H200 does for the upper extremities.”
Namely, Mr. Zilberman explained, the devices provide therapies that are restorative in nature rather than the usual practice of teaching patients how to compensate for their disability.
The relatively unobtrusive leg devices should be available soon. They’re made in Israel by a company called NESS Ltd., the co-founder of Bioness with the Alfred E. Mann Foundation for Scientific Research). The devices are undergoing FDA review and are soon expected to receive final clearance.
Available for purchase for home use, the H200 costs $6,200; the L300 will be priced at $5,900. Inpatient and outpatient treatment with the H200 are covered by insurance. Some private insurers are covering the cost of the H200 for patients purchasing the device for a home therapy program. As yet, Medicare and MassHealth do not cover purchase price. However, home trials for one to three months can be arranged with Bioness.
Say Botox and you think immediately of women…and men…seeking to turn back the aging process with expensive injections.
But even before this application to make us all wrinkle-free, Botox was used as a muscle relaxer in basic muscular rehabilitation. Today it’s also used in concert with electrical stimulation devices to restore muscle function following stroke and brain or spinal cord injury.
According to Yitzhak Zilberman, president and CEO of Bioness, Inc., of Santa Clarita, California, which markets the electrical stimulators, the Botox “creates a synaptic connection between the nerves and muscles and makes the muscles less spastic. Relaxing the muscles makes them easier to treat.”
“Our physicians have been using Botox to treat spasticity for some time,” added Carole Stasowski, director of marketing for the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Cape and Islands in Sandwich. “Now we also can pair Botox injections with the NESS H200, increasing the effectiveness of therapy.”