New tech gives kids with cerebral palsy ‘unparalleled’ improvements

By Alice Clifford via SWNS

Pioneering technology used to treat children with cerebral palsy has resulted in "unparalleled" improvements by taking a non-surgical approach.

The non-invasive spinal treatment was created by Califoria-based company SpineX.

It used Spinal Cord Innovation in Pediatrics, or SCiP TM, improved voluntary sensorimotor function in 100 percent of the children in the trial.

Each child had a wide range of ages and severities of the condition.

SCiP TM treats cerebral palsy by transforming the brain and spinal cord dysfunctional connectivity into highly functional systems. Essentially, it makes movement easier and less painful.

Cerebral palsy is severely debilitating and until now there has been no methods or medications to prevent or treat it.

In the US, around 764,000 people have at least one symptom, and over 10,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.

Symptoms of cerebral palsy usually become apparent when a child reaches around two or three.

They can include weak arms or legs, lack of balance, random, uncontrolled movements, speaking and vision problems and learning disabilities.

The condition is caused by damage to a developing brain. This could be due to a serious head injury, bleeding in a baby's brain, an infection caught by a mother during pregnancy, a difficult birth that leads to a baby's brain being starved of oxygen, or meningitis.

Often children with the condition are left to be treated with invasive surgeries that attempt to decrease spasticity, a common symptom of the disease, which is when the stiffness of their muscles interfere with movement and speech.

Dana, a mother of one of the children diagnosed with cerebral palsy who was enrolled in the clinical study said: “At just three years old and highly affected by cerebral palsy, our son has shown such exciting progress since he began using SCiP.

“We’re so grateful that our son was included in the clinical study with SCiP TM as it has opened up a world of possibilities for our son, and we hope others will be able to witness it soon.”

It is SpineX's first human study in children with cerebral palsy.

SpineX has been awarded the Breakthrough Device Designation from US FDA for SCiP TM and their proposed treatment for cerebral palsy.

They now aim to get FDA support on a proposed clinical trial to be conducted in 2023, and they hope the results will lead to FDA clearance of the SCiP TM device for treatment of the life altering condition.

The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.