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Spinal implants allow paralysed people to walk, swim and cycle again

economist.com

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Re: Spinal implants allow paralysed people to walk, swim and cycle again

#71

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

londons_explore wrote: post #50
cjmcqueen wrote: post #37

As a partner of a person with a complete spinal cord injury, I appreciate these articles and the science being done by these researchers, it is truly a big and complex and worthwhile problem to solve. For most of us, I do want to suggest being careful when and how you mention research and articles like this to people in wheelchairs. Just be aware there are lots of different reasons why someone might be in a wheelchai…

I guess the real question is, will a dollar spent on wheelchair ramps in buildings across the USA give a greater quality of life improvement to the average american than a dollar spent on medical research that tries to repair spinal nerves? Obviously "average american" is not intended to reflect the 'typical american', but instead be an average across all people, including those with mobility requirements.

> will a dollar spent on wheelchair ramps in buildings across the USA give a greater quality of life improvement to the average american than a dollar spent on medical research that tries to repair spinal nerves?

Yes, I don’t know why this is even a question. Ramps support people who will never need spinal nerve repair. They support strollers, wheeled luggage, canes, crutches, fall risk folks, furniture movers, bike/scooters, etc.

Re: Spinal implants allow paralysed people to walk, swim and cycle again

#72

Post by afarrell »

londons_explore wrote: post #66
Tsiklon wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction is that the quality of life improvement can be done now, and can make peoples' lives better immediately. It's not just wheelchair users that can make use of accessible infrastructure, the elderly, and young children can more readily make use of it too. I don't discount the promise or effect of such research, but the utilitarian in me says that this can make a tangible improvement now, and to more peop…

There are plenty of such tradeoffs... For example, the government could start a helicopter service to help people cross a river today, or they could build a bridge across the river, which will help far more people, but won't be ready for 5 years. I assume governments have models to make decisions about utility now vs utility later, and the way that trades off with cost now vs cost later. I don't see why this decision…

> I assume governments have models to make decisions about utility now vs utility later, and the way that trades off with cost now vs cost later.

I'm curious where this assumption comes from. It seems more likely that it would be made on intuition of what story will seem most defensible to voters or avoid the angry scrutiny of a legislator.

If decisions were made with the high level of rationality you point to, it seems unlikely that the US would have problems like this:

- https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2022/02/07/pittsburgh-warnin...

- https://www.marketwatch.com/story/it-is-a-challenge-the-irs-...

- https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-announces-transition-away-f...

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Looking at your username lets consider a question such as "Should we pay additional money to design London's new Elizabeth Line with step-free access at all stations?"

for such a model to answer such questions, we would need a way to accurately count costs. If could do that, then the line would already be open.

Re: Spinal implants allow paralysed people to walk, swim and cycle again

#73

Post by londons_explore »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #71
londons_explore wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the real question is, will a dollar spent on wheelchair ramps in buildings across the USA give a greater quality of life improvement to the average american than a dollar spent on medical research that tries to repair spinal nerves? Obviously "average american" is not intended to reflect the 'typical american', but instead be an average across all people, including those with mobility requirements.

> will a dollar spent on wheelchair ramps in buildings across the USA give a greater quality of life improvement to the average american than a dollar spent on medical research that tries to repair spinal nerves? Yes, I don’t know why this is even a question. Ramps support people who will never need spinal nerve repair. They support strollers, wheeled luggage, canes, crutches, fall risk folks, furniture movers, bike/…

But medical research leads to treatments which may have far better quality of life improvements than ramps. And when discovered, those treatments can be used forever, whereas ramps require constant spending for every new or renovated building.

Both are 'obviously' better than the other, depending on what you look at. Therefore the decision really should be made with more data.

Re: Spinal implants allow paralysed people to walk, swim and cycle again

#74

Post by sschueller »

spupe wrote: post #7

This builds upon some solid research in rodents and humans, which had showed very promising results. It is very likely to become a therapeutic option within the next 10 years, in my opinion.

Yes, a tremendous amount of research and animal testing. The exact opposite of what Elon is promising and doing after taking over nural link.

Re: Spinal implants allow paralysed people to walk, swim and cycle again

#75

Post by oalders »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #69
cjmcqueen wrote: post #37

As a partner of a person with a complete spinal cord injury, I appreciate these articles and the science being done by these researchers, it is truly a big and complex and worthwhile problem to solve. For most of us, I do want to suggest being careful when and how you mention research and articles like this to people in wheelchairs. Just be aware there are lots of different reasons why someone might be in a wheelchai…

To your last point, it's worth pointing out that making your built environment more easily traversible and usable for people with accessibility needs will pretty much always make it more easily traversible and usable for everyone . It's hard to appreciate this until you visit a country where they haven't spent decades making sure their elevators and hallways are wide enough, there are no unnecessary stupid steps, the…

I only truly appreciated this once I had was a pedestrian in a big city with a baby stroller. If a wheelchair can get somewhere, generally the stroller can do it as well. (At least a single wide stroller). Making places more accessible can have a positive impact on large parts of the population.

Re: Spinal implants allow paralysed people to walk, swim and cycle again

#76

Post by mwcampbell »

twayt wrote: post #17

I wonder if this could be used for a truly immersive vr experience. 1. Hook up said implant, convert analog impulse to digital 2. Chemically induce paralysis of the peripheral motor neurons (??) 3. Truly immersive VR experience where participant controls embodied avatar

The sequel to the novel Ready Player One, predictably called Ready Player Two, begins by introducing an OASIS Neural Interface (ONI) headset, which paralyzes the body and directly connects the brain to the OASIS VR. To develop this technology in secret, the creator of the OASIS set up an "Accessibility Research Lab" to develop implants for various categories of disabled people, then moved on to develop the headset.

As a disabled (legally blind) person myself, I had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it felt like we (well, the disabled people in the fictional world) were being used as means to an end. On the other hand, one of my unanswered questions from the first book was what the rise of a VR like the OASIS would mean for people like us; I felt that the second book provided a satisfying answer (in the fictional world, if not in the real one).

To be clear, the sequel was panned, for good reasons IMO. I chose to read it before looking at the reviews. I don't recommend it, but this comment reminded me of it.

Re: Spinal implants allow paralysed people to walk, swim and cycle again

#77

Post by mwcampbell »

londons_explore wrote: post #73
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> will a dollar spent on wheelchair ramps in buildings across the USA give a greater quality of life improvement to the average american than a dollar spent on medical research that tries to repair spinal nerves? Yes, I don’t know why this is even a question. Ramps support people who will never need spinal nerve repair. They support strollers, wheeled luggage, canes, crutches, fall risk folks, furniture movers, bike/…

But medical research leads to treatments which may have far better quality of life improvements than ramps. And when discovered, those treatments can be used forever, whereas ramps require constant spending for every new or renovated building. Both are 'obviously' better than the other, depending on what you look at. Therefore the decision really should be made with more data.

> But medical research leads to treatments which may have far better quality of life improvements than ramps. And when discovered, those treatments can be used forever, whereas ramps require constant spending for every new or renovated building.

I think you make a good point here. Likewise, making software accessible, e.g. to blind people, requires effort for every GUI toolkit and non-trivial application. In the short term, that work has to be done, because it would be wrong to just leave blind people without a way to independently access software that might be critical to jobs, education, etc. But if we started funding research into curing or preventing all of the various causes of blindness now, then we could eventually solve the problem permanently. I'd have to find a different problem domain to work in, but I might be retired by then anyway.

Re: Spinal implants allow paralysed people to walk, swim and cycle again

#79

Post by snovv_crash »

eps wrote: post #63
vba wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this post downvoted? Is it inaccurate.

Yes, it is inaccurate to the point of being the reverse. Muscles are controlled through the software, with pattern of activation uploaded from an iPad via Bluetooth and generally managed by am accompanying person. The patients absolutely do NOT control the muscles with their brain.

So basically it's just a DAC + amplifier, not an ADC or with any kind of passthrough.
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