The World Cup

begins tomorrow. It will be “kicked off” by a teenager who has a paraplegic spinal cord injury, outfitted in a robotic suit. The event has created a stir in the media and caused a firestorm of debate in the spinal cord injury community.

The Brazilian government provided $14 million to fund development of the suit. In the world of medical research, this is not an enormous sum of money, but it certainly makes a difference in the underfunded area of spinal cord injury.

Those who support research and development in the area of robotics argue that it brings us closer to recovery of locomotion, and any sort of upright mobility is healthier than spending all day in your wheelchair. Many believe that cures via the path of regenerative medicine are so far away that they will not see a benefit in their lifetimes, whereas robotics offer more immediate promise. As for the World Cup event and given that spinal cord injury receives so little media attention, they claim that any publicity is better than none.

On the other side of the coin, proponents of a focus on regenerative medicine argue that the potential for robotics is much more limited: The devices will not help those with quadriplegic injuries, and they do not bring recovery for secondary complications like bowel, bladder & sexual function, neuropathic pain, and more. They would say that spending vast amounts of money on robotics at the expense of regenerative medicine only helps to keep people paralyzed.

What do you think? Should we spend our precious dollars on compensatory devices or repairing the spinal cord?

 

Tags: Brazil, exoskeleton, neurotechnology, regenerative medicine, robotics, spinal cord injury, World Cup