Surgeons Make a Breakthrough with Quardraplegic Patients

Surgeons have been able to restore partial mobility to a quadriplegic patient’s hand. A team of surgeons used upper arm nerves to rewire a fresh connection to the intact motor control region of a quadriplegic patient’s brain. After a year of physical therapy, the patient can move his thumb and index finger.

This kind of procedure is unusual because surgeons usually do not try to go back into the spinal cord where the injury is – they would usually just go to the region where they know things work, borrow nerves there, and reroute them to return function to a hand.

The newly tested method may only be available for patients who were injured in the lower region of the neck – even if time has elapsed since his or her original injury. Those who suffer injury to the spine lose all arm function and are not eligible for this kind of procedure. 

See Alan Mozes, Doctors Restore Some Hand Function to Quadriplegic Patient, Everyday Health, May 15, 2012.  

Special thanks to David S. Luber (Attorney at law, Florida Probate Attorney Wills and Estates Law Firm) for bringing this article to my attention.