People With Spine Injuries Can Now Walk Better With New Treatment

Scientists have discovered a new treatment to help people with spinal injuries improve their mobility.

Motor vehicle accidents are the most common cause of spinal cord injuries in the United States. Such injuries impair movement and sometimes lead to paralysis also.

"About 59 percent of all spinal injuries are incomplete, leaving pathways that could allow the spinal cord to change in a way that allows people to walk again. Unfortunately, usually a person affected by this type of spinal injury seldom recovers the ability to walk normally. Our research proposes a promising new way for the spinal cord to make the connections needed to walk better," study author Randy D. Trumbower, PT, PhD, with Emory University in Atlanta, said in a statement.

The researchers conducted a study on 19 people with a history of spine injuries between level C2 and T12, no shortening of the joint, some ankle, knee and hip movements. During the study, the participants were exposed to short duration of breathing low levels of oxygen termed hypoxia. In a day the researchers made the participants breathe through masks for nearly 40 minutes. This procedure was repeated almost five days. On the whole, the participants received 90 second periods of low oxygen levels followed by over 60 seconds of normal oxygen levels. Apart from this, the researchers also tested the participants' speed of walking and endurance before the start of the study, on the first and fifth day of the treatment, after a week and again two weeks after finishing the treatment.

The researchers divided the participants into two different groups. In the first group, nine of them were given either the treatment or a mock treatment in which the participants received normal oxygen levels. After two weeks they were again given the treatment. In the second group, the participants were given the treatment or mock treatment. Then they were asked to walk as fast as possible for nearly 30 minutes within an hour of the commencement of the treatment and then after two weeks they received the other treatment.

The researchers noticed that the participants who received hypoxia had increased their speed of walking by almost 10 meters, walking on an average of 3.8 seconds faster when compared to the time they did not receive the treatment. The participants, who got the treatment along with walking, displayed increased endurance on a test in which they had to walk as far as possible for six minutes. Above all, the walking ability of all the participants had improved.

"One question this research brings to light is how a treatment that requires people to take in low levels of oxygen can help movement, let alone in those with compromised lung function and motor abilities," said Michael G. Fehlings, MD, PhD, with the University of Toronto in Canada, who wrote a corresponding editorial on the study. "A possible answer is that spinal serotonin, a neurotransmitter, sets off a cascade of changes in proteins that help restore connections in the spine."

The study was documented in the journal Neurology.