Hope for stroke paralysis as new device can retrain brain

TENS of thousands of stroke patients left with disabilities have been offered new hope after scientists proved that it is possible to retrain the undamaged side of the brain to move paralysed limbs.

Around 100,000 people suffer a stroke each year in the UK and two thirds of the 60,000 survivors will leave hospital with a disability.

But now scientists in the US have invented a device which retrains the undamaged side of the brain to take over tasks performed by the stroke-damaged part.

“We have shown that a brain-computer interface using the uninjured hemisphere can achieve meaningful recovery in chronic stroke patients,” said Prof Eric Leuthardt.

The team from Washington University School of Medicine selected 10 patients who were still suffering significant paralysis six months on from their stroke.

They were invited to use the device for up to two hours a day for 12 weeks.

At the end of the study their ability to grasp objects was far better.

“For some, this represents the difference between being unable to put on their pants by themselves and being able to do so,” Prof Leuthardt said.

The study was published in the journal Stroke.