It's been eight years since Bill Kochevar became completely dependent. He had an accident where his bike collided with a truck. The accident made him completely paralyzed. People like that get really depressed, and there is hardly anything that brings back hope to them.
People often complain about how technology is composed just of robots, numbers, wires, and other things that involve no love in our lives. However, not everything about technology is like that. The technology helped this man to eat and drink a coffee on his own.
A computer that decodes the signals of thoughts
Bill Kochevar underwent the operation that helped him establish control over his Hands, by using his thoughts. During the operation, electrical implants were installed in Bill's brain, while the sensor got inserted in his arm. With his thoughts, he sends the signals from his brain to his arm and hands muscles. Those signals are decoded by a computer.
Thanks to the experimental technology of Case Western Reserve University, this man became the first completely paralyzed person that established control over his hands using his brain.
They are trying to make the system even better
“I think about what I want to do and the system does it for me,“ Said Kochevar.
“It’s not a lot of thinking about it. When I want to do something, my brain does what it does.“
For now, the process runs pretty slowly, but scientists believe that this is the proof that the concept is working and that technology needs to be developed in order to make this treatment for patients routine. They also say that in the future, sensors will be inserted under the skin and that way they will be invisible.
This wasn’t the only try to cope with paralysis
Functional electrical stimulation of the muscles and nerves was tried before as a mean of helping the patients with paralysis, but it was hard to trigger it. In order to trigger it, they tried movements such as shoulder shrugs or head nods. Kochevar only has to think about the action for it to be performed.
Kochevar was training for four months. He was thinking about the way of turning the grip or wrist of the fingers in order to cause the movement and that way enable the computer to recognize the signals from the motor cortex. This is definitely something good that can be of use to people.
