Kristen Sorensen was 55 years old when she was paralyzed from the neck down last year.
"It came from nowhere," says Sorensen. "I was fine and exercising every day, but it just started with tingling in my fingertips and then progressed."
She was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome in October 2018, a rare disorder that affects the body's nervous system, and she never expected to walk again.
But earlier that year, the Brooks Electronic Therapy Center in Jacksonville, Florida, became the first American center to use a unique rehab technology developed in Japan - Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL).
Here's what's really mind-blowing: Patients use their brain waves to control them.
When Sorensen heard about the brainwave-controlled exoskeleton developed by Japanese robotics scientist Yoshiyuki Sankai, she knew she should try it. She was determined to walk her daughter's wedding a few months later in December.
But it is not only those with disabilities or injuries who benefit. By 2050, there will be more than two billion people over the age of 60, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), and exoskeletons could provide a solution for the world's elderly.
When she first tried Sorensen HAL, she could barely move across flat surfaces.
A trained physical therapist at the Brooks Center helped her fit HAL to her waist and pants, and connected them to sensors that help capture faded bioelectric signals on the surface of the skin, which convey the patient's intention to move. Once the HAL receives these signals, it helps support the person's movements.
But you can't just wear a HAL and expect to run fast in seconds. Rehabilitation requires time, determination, and assistance from a physical therapist and a bodyweight belt that ensures that patients are supported and kept upright while they use the HAL on a treadmill. During this training, physical therapists keep a record of each patient's movements and the settings used - from walking to running position. They can monitor the user's movements and adjust settings accordingly, so that their movements come naturally.
Sorensen says she initially felt HAL was doing most of the work by helping stimulate her muscles to make small leg movements that mimicked natural walking patterns, but then she increasingly found herself in the driver's seat.
“After the first few times, your brain connects to HAL, and I can see that I am moving my legs myself,” she says. "It was unbelievable - my heart was bursting."
People with less severe movement problems than Sorensen usually take between two to 10 attempts for patients to become accustomed to the HAL so that the sensors and the brain can start working together, according to Sunkai. But after nearly 40 training sessions, each taking an hour and a half, Sorensen is back on her feet, albeit with the support of a walker. She got to her daughter's wedding.
The mind behind HAL is the billionaire robot scientist Sankai who wears eyeglasses. He heads the Japanese company Cyberdyne - founded in 2004 - where his vision was to create a "wearable cyborg" designed "to integrate human, machine and information".
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