A paraplegic patient has returned to walk thanks to a neurostimulator. It is the story of Andrea, 33 years old, who in 2021 had had a bad accident at work that had caused him a serious medullary and had remained with his legs paralyzed. Thanks to a team of doctors, physiotherapists, researchers and bioengineers, he started walking.
The intervention
The revolutionary operation saw the collaboration of a Multidisciplinary Lab Multidisciplinary Team composed of doctors, physiotherapists and researchers from the IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital of Milan and the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, together with the Bioengineers of the Sant’Anna High School of Pisa coordinated by Silvestro Myra. Andrea’s case was published on “Med – Cell Press”. In the study Luigi Albano, neurosurgeon and researcher of San Raffaele, describes “the incredible recovery” of the young man, immobilized by “a traumatic bone marrow at the low chest level (T11-T12) extended to the bone marrow cone, the terminal portion of the spinal cord”. The first author of the research explains that the accident had caused Andrea “a serious motor deficit due to the damage of the nervous system both central and peripheral”. The researchers then “surgically implanted a bone marrow neurostimulator in the epidural space” and after “they applied specific stimulation and rehabilitation protocols, significantly improving muscle strength, walking and motor control”.
The study is part of a research path started with the first system intervention of a medullary neurostimulator in 2023, performed by a team led by Pietro Mortini, primary of the San Raffaele neurosurgery and ordinary professor at the University of Vita-Salute. The route continued with the publication, on “Science Translational Medicine” in 2025, of the first results obtained on two implanted patients who demonstrate the effectiveness of the innovative epidural electrical stimulation protocol (Epidural Electrical Stimulation) in the treatment of spinal cord lesions.
