Download
1 / 20
E N D
NeuroControl Exit Leaves Hole in Spinal Injury Marketby James Cavuoto, editorThe market for functional electrical stimulation and neural prostheses was dealt a shock recently when NeuroControl Corp. announced that it would no longer market products targeted at persons with spinal cord injury, and will instead concentrate on products for treating stroke. The decision, which came in the wake of significant staff reductions at the Valley View, OH firm last fall, means that NeuroControl will no longer promote its FreeHand implanted hand-grasp stimulator or its VoCare bladder control prosthesis to new customers, though it will continue to service existing customers. A NeuroControl executive said the firm is looking for another organization to take over the product line. The move sent reverberations through the research community in functional electrical stimulation field, prompting spirited discussions as last month’s meeting of the American Spinal Injury Association in Vancouver, B.C. There, researchers from the Cleveland FES Center and Case Western Reserve University, where the FreeHand system was originally developed, pushed the case for developing neural prostheses for the spinal cord injury community, despite the NeuroControl decision.
