Patients with neurological deficits resulting from accidents, strokes and amputations will help demonstrate innovations in Functional Electronic Stimulation, or FES. The technology aids in restoring refined function to muscles, allowing patients to breathe without a ventilator, walk, and even crochet.
Dr. Gregory Nemunaitis, Director of Spinal Cord Injury and Rehabilitation at Metrohealth, says that a patients' ability to perform an everyday function on their own is proof of the importance of the technology.
Gregory Nemunaitis: Seeing somebody drink out of a glass for the first time for five or ten years, it's heartbreaking.
Nemunaitis says that he hopes attention from the conference will take FES innovations out of the laboratory and into hospitals around the world.