In 2011, Gert-Jan Oskam suffered a motorbike accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. The damage to his spinal cord severed the connection between his brain and his legs, preventing signals from reaching his legs to make them move. However, in 2018, a breakthrough occurred when Dr. Jocelyne Bloch, a neurosurgeon at Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland, inserted a device on Oskam’s spine that could send out electrical impulses, allowing him to walk with a walker after intensive training.
In 2023, Bloch implanted additional devices inside Oskam’s brain to create a “digital bridge” between his legs and his brain. With more training, Oskam was able to move much more naturally, gaining precise control of his joints, the ability to stand, walk with a walker, and even climb stairs. Remarkably, Oskam could still walk with the device turned off, indicating that it may be helping his nervous system rebuild itself.
Neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, worked on the development of the device and hopes to make the technology safe and effective for wider public use within the next decade. However, the team is still exploring ways to enhance the technology further with the ultimate goal of enabling paralyzed individuals to walk completely “normally.”
