Erik Sorto has been paralyzed for more than a decade unable to move his arms or legs. However, he was recently able to pick up a beer and drink it all thanks to a new robotic arm.
Eric Sorto was paralyzed from the neck down by a gunshot injury when he was just 21 years old, leaving him unable to use both his arms and legs. Now, thanks to a joint project by Caltech, Keck Medicine of USC and Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, he has become the very first patient to have a device surgically implanted into his brain that plans movements. This new implant allowed him to move the robotic arm.
"He comes in and he's plugged in like 'The Matrix,'" Dr. Mindy Aisen, chief medical officer and principal investigator of the Spinal Cord Injury Model System at Rancho, said, adding that Sorto has exceeded every expectation. "He's painted pictures, made the smoothies. It's been a wonderful experience. It's a very good thing for our patients who are paralyzed to see such tech wizardry."
For months, Aisen worked with Sorto telling him to imagine moving his hand, but nothing happened. So, they turned up the audio so he could actually hear his neurons and know they were working.
"I was there the day it all clicked. He was looking at the robot arm and he was perspiring," she said. "He started to laugh, to relax. He said, 'Thumbs up, thumbs down. Thumbs up, thumbs down.'"
After awhile, he did it. From there, he has truly come a long way. He gradually learned to perform more tasks, from making a smoothie to even drinking a beer.
"The project is much bigger than the science fiction excitement of Eric," Aisen said, explaining that it offers hope for patients who are "locked in" due to ALS severe strokes and other injuries.
Indeed, if this new technology that seems straight out of science fiction does work for other patients with a variety of neurological and spinal chord injuries and diseases, the world could finally be reopened to them giving them a little more independence and freedom to do things they want without having to seek the assistant to others. As for Sorto, he is happy to lead the way for others and is grateful for the added freedom this new robotic arm gives him. After all, there is nothing like cracking open your own beer after a hard day.
