Progress for Paraplegics

View the link here:

http://www.caltech.edu/content/progress-paraplegics

The above article discusses a recent discovery made by biomedical researchers at Caltech.  Scientists had previously developed a system which allowed paraplegics to stand and even take steps on their own.  Now, a new innovation by Caltech professors Burdick, Hayman, and Tai will allow a computer interface between the patient and their electrical stimulation, and using a complex algorithm, the best pattern of electrical stimulation can be determined and applied to the patient.  This allows for optimum stimulation of the paraplegic patient, and saves the engineers a huge amount of time in terms of optimization of the array of electrotrodes.  So far, the system has already been successful in a handful of clients, and the team of engineers who developed this potentially life-changing system hope that it will be applied and used for physical therapy across the country.  While it is noted that there is no, "silver bullet," for solving paralysis, this is a large step forward in a field which was previously slow to the uptake.

This article was interesting to me because it combines prosthetics with advanced computer algorithms, and represents a significant step forward in the prosthetics world, since many new prosthetics incorporate electronic components.  I hope to work in a field similar to this some day.