Parkinson's patient able to walk 6km without problems after spinal implant
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
It's a strange emphases on a very specific number. I wouldn't say "I repaired my car's engine and it can now drive 20 miles" if what I meant was "I repaired my car's engine and it drives normally now"
The device explodes.
Seriously, "Can walk 6km" is an excellent way to concisely yet still quantitatively describe what the man can now do. (Imagine the response if it had instead merely said "He can go for long walks": "But how long is 'long'??!?")
You might say that your car could now drive 20 miles if before it was known that it barely made it to the end of the road.
Walking back home is a pain though since it’s all uphill.
And for anyone that didn’t get it, this video will make your day
You obviously know very little about America. First of all, most Americans aren't so fat they can't walk around. Second, I'm really fat (far more than average) and even I can hike a mile in mountainous terrain. Not only can I, I have and will again. It's taxing (which it shouldn't be), but it's quite manageable. Walking a mile isn't that much in the grand scheme of things.
So yeah, not only is it uncharitable, your attempt to defend it shows your own ignorance both of Americans and of what level of activity is possible even for those who are overweight. Bad show, sir.
He's still pretty active, he maintains sections of the Bibbulmun Track (1,000 km walking track here in the lower corner of the state) shovels the odd few tonnes of manure, splits wood by hand, etc.
Go for a run, then get back to something productive or novel or mind-expanding.
You're a once-in-a-universe spark. All of the things since the big bang led to you now, and you will never be again. This is it. The universe exists for you now, and you have this one singular play through.
Why go for the same walk over and over and over?
I get it, but at the same time, I really don't.
During a walk you can think more clearly, or you can listen to a (mind-expanding) podcast, or you can walk with friends or your partner which counts towards building & strengthening relationships. That's without even considering the health benefits.
If you drive somewhere you could walk, that time really is wasted - because you should be focusing on not killing anyone instead of on anything interesting.
Same walk over and over? Could be a nice walk! I repeat the same walks, because I live near a park and a beach. I could roam the streets randomly instead, but that wouldn't be better.
Running is better for cardio, sure, but I tended to find that changing clothes, warming up, running 5K, recovering and taking a shower takes close to an hour - and I could have walked that 5K in the same time and not been exhausted for the rest of the morning. Longer distances are more worth it but regular 10-20K runs turned out to be bad for my knees.
> Why go for the same walk over and over and over?
Destress.
Also generally the reason we play the same (kind of, or even exactly the same kind of) music again and again and eat the same food again and again.
We need novelty. But we also need some continuity.
Hopefully the company behind this doesn't go bust or otherwise stop supporting the implant.
Seems to be a common problem for people with leading edge implanted tech, leaving them in a precarious situation afterwards.
The Japanese had earlier examples but I think it was just a typical spinal stim unit they appropriated from the chronic pain folks. This one seemed to map the myotomes a little more in detail from my brief overview, so it's probably acting as a complex leg muscle actuator w/ a central controller chip vs. just blasting the spine w/ juice
It IS good to know we have implants to help them. But, what would really thrill me is that we end up finding something that can cure them!
“The average time from onset of movement problems to the development of dementia is about 10 years.”
https://memory.ucsf.edu/dementia/parkinsons/parkinson-diseas....
I've read that exercise, hard exercise, can mitigate or recover some of the effects of parkinsons.
The motor symptoms of Parkinson’s are caused by the loss of dopamine producing neurons in the motor cortex. The loss of those neurons for any reason would cause Parkinson style motor symptoms.
The cause of the loss of dopamine producing neurons in standard Parkinson’s is not understood, but appears to be related to a thing called Lewy bodies which are deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein. The presence of Lewy bodies outside of the motor cortex is correlated with a disease called Lewy body dementia rather than Parkinson’s.
Most likely, there is a underlying process that causes neuron loss that slowly spreads. This process frequently starts in the motor cortex resulting in Parkinson’s, but sometimes starts elsewhere causing Lewy body dementia. Dementia in a person with Parkinson’s likely occurs when the process starts spreading beyond the motor cortex which effectively causes Lewy body dementia now that it is no longer isolated to the motor cortex.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6007714/
It certainly had a significant impact on a Parkinson's patient I knew (from regular expressions of and involvement with delusional hallucinations to relatively normal, organized behavior).
Of course the loss of cells might be self reinforcing.
Was?
I don't follow why the specific Coronavirus that causes COVID-19 would be different on this regard.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/08/man-walks-of...
In response to an article of a technique actually successfully working.
One dudes undiagnosed anecdote is not a gotcha on a literal medical marvel.
/s because Poe's law