SFU leg-paralysis stimulation, sensing device hits market
The Neurostep—a device developed at Simon Fraser University that assists people who have paralysis in one leg to walk—will soon be on the market in Europe and, eventually, in the U.S. and Canada.
By Design Engineering staff | April 08, 2009
That’s satisfying news to Andy Hoffer, the SFU kinesiologist who spent 30 years developing the device aimed at helping those who suffer from limb immobility due to neurological impairment.
The Neurostep is a pacemaker-like device implanted inside the thigh. It uses nerve cuffs to sense and stimulate nerve activity in the paralyzed leg, allowing greater mobility for those suffering from neurological disabilities such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury or cerebral palsy. It has been engineered to integrate with the body’s natural sensing and stimulation network and designed to closely mimic specific functions that have been interrupted or lost due to disease or injury.
Hoffer and his team pioneered the design and use of nerve-cuff electrodes and developed specialized amplifiers. He patented assistive-device designs and applications and, in 1997, created an SFU spin-off company, Neurostream Technologies, which was bought by Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, Que.-based Victhom Human Bionics in 2004 (which also developed a motorized, processor-controlled lower-limb prosthesis for people amputated above the knee, which Design Engineering profiled last year).
About the size of a cell phone, the control unit is the “brain” of the Neurostep that houses its patented Bionized CLS technology integrating three digital modules. These include the:
• Neurosensing module: Receives nerve impulses, amplifies and filters them for interpretation;
• Real-time adaptive control module: Interrogates the signals and identifies specific physical events like heel strike or when the toes lift off the ground;
• Neurostimulation module: Generates and delivers the optimal stimulation energy to the target nerve to activate the muscular contraction.
He serves on Victhom’s Neurostep clinical advisory board and has been named to its new scientific advisory board, announced Feb. 27. He remains active in Neurostep product development and clinical validation.
Victhom recently obtained Europe’s CE Mark approval for its Neurostep System, the first approval of its kind for a closed-loop system (CLS) that uses signals sensed directly from peripheral nerves. The approval paves the way for marketing the Neurostep in Europe and developing patient training activities for hospitals and physicians.
Victhom is also working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials and eventually introduce the device in the U.S.
Hoffer and his students in SFU’s Neurokinesiology Lab are now focused on developing and testing (in pigs) a reversible, minimally invasive nerve stimulation electrode for “pacing” the human diaphragm muscle.
Their research, funded by an NSERC Idea-to-Innovation grant, could lead to a device that assists breathing and prevents diaphragm-muscle weakness or atrophy in critically ill patients who currently can only be kept alive with mechanical ventilation.
www.neurokin.sfu.ca/researchProject.php?s=381
www.victhom.com/en/neurostimulation/neurostep.php
www.sfu.ca
