Multisite Transspinal Stimulation for Augmenting Recovery in Spinal Cord Injury

Study Summary

A well-established rehabilitation strategy for improvements of standing and walking ability in persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) is step training on a motorized treadmill with body weight support. A promising intervention is stimulation of the spinal cord through the skin (transspinal). No single intervention is likely to significantly improve long-term function after SCI on its own. Rather, combinatorial treatments that work synergistically and can be used at different clinical settings is the answer to target recovery in people with SCI. The objective of this clinical trial is to develop a non-invasive combinatorial intervention that can be used worldwide in different clinical settings. The investigators will use cervical and lumbosacral transspinal stimulation to augment the benefits of locomotor training and affect vital body functions after SCI. The investigators will deliver non-invasive cervical and lumbosacral transspinal stimulation alone or with step training to improve upright posture, walking, bladder, sex, and bowel function in persons with incomplete SCI. The noninvasive nature of the intervention holds minimal risk that outweighs the benefits.

Primary Outcome

Investigators will deliver single pulses of 1 ms duration every 5 seconds at increasing intensities to the posterior tibial nerve behind the knee to assemble the soleus H-reflex recruitment curve. At least 50 responses will be recorded. From the recruitment curve, the investigators will estimate changes in the slope and stimulation intensities for reflex threshold.

Conditions Studied

Interventions

• DEVICE Multisite transspinal stimulation at rest
• DEVICE Multisite transspinal stimulation during robotic gait training

Study Locations (1)