A woman in the UK is learning to walk again thanks to new technology. Stroke victim Julie Lloyd is among the first people to try out AI-powered pants. The invention is on behalf of the technology firm Kurage, which has already transformed the recovery of Julie and other patients in the UK and France.
Julie, a 63-year-old businesswoman used to running marathons, suffered a stroke in January of this year. This caused him a partial paralysis in one arm and the left leg. His rehabilitation has been slow and exhausting. In recent weeks, she has been able to walk with a cane. When she was finally able to take about 3,000 steps a day, her physical therapist recommended that she participate in the experiment.
The pants with artificial intelligence are called “NeuroSkin». They stimulate his paralyzed leg through electrodes controlled by artificial intelligence. “It feels like my leg is being guided,” Julie told the BBC.
The first time she used the device she felt a strange tingling sensation. However, a few minutes later, he was already walking without the help of his cane. For the first time in six months. “My leg came up off the ground suddenly and it made me feel safe walking… It’s something that, honestly, I haven’t felt at all with all the physiotherapy I’ve had,” she told the British outlet.
How do pants with artificial intelligence work?
Muscle electrostimulation has been used in the rehabilitation of people with paralysis for years. These pants with artificial intelligence now provide greater accuracy in the type of stimulus the patient needs to recover the function of their muscles, explains Kurage on his website.
NeuroSkin pants feature shoes and wires with electrodes on the six main muscle groups of each leg. The electrodes, placed directly on the surface of the skin, send low-intensity electrical impulses that, by stimulating the motor nerves, trigger muscle contractions. “In this way, using different muscle groups according to a precise sequence of muscle selectivity, we can recreate a functional movement in a controlled and safe way,” says the company.
The system can define custom muscle contraction sequences. Can reproduce specific movements, such as pedaling, rowing, catching or walking.
In Julie’s case, the artificial intelligence pants collect information about the impulses that the brain sends to the healthy leg with each step. It then returns a mirror stimulus to the affected leg to recreate its natural gait. “The smart garment is like a second skin,” Rudi Gombauld, chief executive of Kurage, told the BBC.
A hope for millions of patients
The Stroke Association in Great Britain estimates that there are 1.3 million stroke survivors in the country that could benefit from technologies like this. In Spain, at least 110,000 people suffer a stroke every year. According to the Spanish Society of Neurology, it was estimated that in 2022 there were 330,000 Spaniards with some limitation in their functional capacity as a result of this type of accident.
Artificial intelligence, which has revolutionized the technology industry this year, also managed to a paralyzed person would walk againthanks to another device with brain and spine implants.
Gert-Jan Oskam, a 40-year-old Dutchman, had a serious motorcycle accident that injured his spinal cord. But a group of researchers from the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne developed a “digital bridge” that connects his brain to the spinal cord, skipping the damaged sections. He walked again after 12 years.