Your Gifts At Work: Revolutionary Technology Enables Young Professional With Spinal Cord Injury to Find Independence

“I could tell in that moment my life was changing.”

This spring, 28-year-old Mike Cantu’s hand moved for the first time since he was 15.

“It was surreal,” he said. “To see my hand move after 13 years – it was euphoric.”

A few days before his sophomore year of high school, Mike, an avid downhill skier, was at an indoor recreation center practicing jumps and flips. Already proficient in several skills and tricks, Mike took precautions seriously, purposely choosing to practice in a safe environment; yet with one wrong landing, his life changed forever.

That day, Mike broke his neck in several places, immediately losing all sensation and movement below his collarbone. 

Over the course of the next decade, he focused on regaining some movement in his upper extremities and made incremental progress working with MetroHealth orthopaedic surgeon Michael Keith, MD, and the team at the MetroHealth Rehabilitation Institute. It was here that he learned of experimental surgeries that use Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) to create movement in paralyzed muscles.

Movement disorders resulting from traumatic brain injury have no true cure, but thanks to donor support, MetroHealth and its partners are developing tools to restore some of the body’s lost functions. By delivering FES to paralyzed muscles using small, implantable neurostimulators, rehabilitation patients like Mike can regain functional use and control of essential muscle groups, leading to marked improvements in their quality of life. This is the work of engineers and researchers at the FES Center, a research consortium based at the MetroHealth Old Brooklyn Health Center.

Following more than three decades of research, the FES Center is working on its third iteration of neuroprosthesis, the most promising tool for hand and arm movement recovery so far. Called the Networked Neuroprosthesis (NNP), it allows patients to regain essential everyday movements like grasping, thumb use, wrist flexion and elbow bending – to be able to do everything from picking up a pen to pushing an elevator button, even holding a drinking glass.

“It’s easy to take for granted how complex our fine motor skills are,” Mike said. 

Because the technology is still in experimental stages, it took years of discussion and planning to prepare for the implant surgery. In that time, Mike graduated high school, attended college at Kent State University and graduate school at Miami University and began work as a project manager for a veterinary equipment company. When the surgery was planned for January 2024, Mike said he set his expectations low; he had already persisted through 13 years without hand movement, after all. 

“If nothing else, I would be contributing to great research for future generations,” he said. But following the surgery and some initial rehabilitation, Mike’s hand muscles responded to the NNP, and he watched his fingers move for the first time.

“That gave me real hope again,” he said. “I didn’t expect it to be such an emotional experience, but I could tell in that moment that my life was changing.”

Soon, Mike was able to comb his hair, brush his teeth and feed himself without assistance.

“I have drastically cut down the number of things I ask for help for, which always makes me feel guilty,” he said. “It’s done incredible things for my mental health and my relationships.”

Because of FES technology, Mike sees a path forward to his ultimate goal: purchasing a home of his own. 

“We are committed to seeing these NNP devices become the standard of care for people with paralysis,” said Hunter Peckham, PhD, co-director of the MetroHealth Rehabilitation Institute who founded the FES Center. “We work with people every day whose lives would be immeasurably changed by this technology.”

In the US alone, there are approximately 17,000 new spinal cord injury cases each year, and an estimated 282,000 individuals are living with spinal cord injuries. 

The MetroHealth Rehabilitation Institute seeks to establish a $2 million fund to support broader patient access to NNP for hand and arm function, and to research ways NNP can address mobility in other parts of the body.

In November 2023, The Fred A. Lennon Charitable Trust made a $600,000 challenge grant commitment in support of the fund to further the transformational work of the FES Center. Over the next three years, an additional $600,000 must be secured to meet the terms of the challenge and contribute $1.2 million to the fund. 

A philanthropic gift would not only help to secure this year’s dollar-for-dollar match but also serve as a catalyst to move devices utilizing FES toward commercialization, while sustaining novel research programs and encouraging other supporters to make meaningful commitments to this work. 

To make a contribution that leverages additional support and enables MetroHealth to become a world-renowned resource for rehabilitation, contact Philanthropy Director Lynn Iams: [email protected] or 440-592-1398.