Innovation
Spinal cord injury: Prosthetic bladder controls urine
A device that could one day restore bladder function to patients with a severed spinal cord has been devised by UK researchers and successfully tested in animals.
Nerve damage in spinal cord injury can leave no sense of when the bladder is full or control over when the contents are released. A study, published in Science Translational Medicine, showed a device to read the remaining nerves' signals could be used to control the organ.
The loss of bladder, bowel and sexual function after spinal cord injury is often rated by patients as having the biggest impact on quality of life. When the spinal cord is injured, signals passing up from the bladder cannot tell the brain when the bladder is full. Going the other way, signals from the brain cannot tell the bladder when it is time to go to the toilet. Researchers at the University of Cambridge have devised a solution that uses the nerves still around the bladder. Electrodes wrapped around bundles of nerves can interpret signals that say the bladder is full. Stimulating other sets of nerves can get the bladder to contract on demand and prevent it emptying of its own volition.
Source: BBC Health
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