A $7.8 Million Grant May Help People With Spinal Issues to Walk

I have to admit something. I love hearing about stories of people healing. Stories of people recovering. In fact, positive stories that bring optimism back to people’s lives are my jam. And I love writing about those stories and then sharing them. After all, we could all use some more positivity in our lives.

That’s why the story I’m about to share with you is so important. And it focuses on those who have had completely debilitating spinal cord injuries leaving them unable to walk. It also focuses on the new chance of people with this condition recovering the ability to walk. Here at GrantWatch we list hundreds of research grants across a range of fields including medical research.

Thanks to a $7.8 million grant awarded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, more may recover. This grant, awarded to a research team at the University of Louisville, will continue the work that led to headlines in 2018. In 2018, this team became known for two people with complete spinal cord injuries recovering the ability. And now, this grant will hopefully help even more people.

Author’s note: We have a grant listed on GrantWatch for Hospitals and other nonprofits in New Jersey doing spinal cord research.

This Grant Award May Help More People Recover the Ability to Walk

In 2018, an experimental treatment, epidural stimulation, was tried. However, the technology wasn’t actually designed to treat spinal issues. It was originally designed to help those suffering from chronic and intractable pain. This distinction may be the reason that there have been some hiccups in repeating these results.

But these new grant funds may prove to be the ticket to the next steps. This $7.8 million grant will bring the best of the best together for progress. This means bringing the research team from University of Louisville’s Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center to partner with medical device company Medtronic. Together, the team will develop and test software applications specifically for spinal cord injury. These software applications will work together with Medtronic’s already existing Intellis, a spinal cord stimulator for chronic pain. This new research may help people with SCI in recovering the ability to walk.

Claudia Angeli, assistant professor of bioengineering in the University of Louisana J.B. Speed School of Engineering and director of the Epidural Stimulation Program at KSCIRC spoke on this award:

“We have seen excellent results with epidural stimulation in the lab, but these enhancements to the technology system will make it much easier to implement this therapy out in the community. Integrating multiple systems will allow people with chronic spinal cord injuries to benefit from stimulation on a daily basis by reducing the need to monitor and manually revise stimulation settings.” — Claudia Angeli

This kind of research could prove life-changing for so many. According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center, the number of people living with spinal injuries in the United States is anywhere from 247,000 to 358,000. Around 17,700 new cases of SCI are diagnosed every year to different degrees.

GrantWatch Knows How Important Medical Research Is to Public Health

At GrantWatch, we love getting to share these kinds of stories. The chance of people with SCI being able to walk again is a tremendous thing. We know that medical research, especially through the NHI, is crucial to progress. That’s why we are so proud to list an entire Medical-grant category on our website. Our subscribers are able to find grants that fund their critical initiatives.

If you have any questions about this grant category or any of the others on our site, feel free to reach out! You can reach our talented customer support team by calling 561-249-4129.