Ambulation by traumatic T4-12 paraplegics using functional neuromuscular stimulation

The review describes and discusses the status of the major approaches to functional neuromuscular stimulation (FNS) for the purpose of ambulation by traumatic complete thoracic-level paraplegics, namely, hybrid body bracing with FNS, percutaneous FNS, fully implanted FNS, and transcutaneous FNS. For each approach, the review discusses the system for which the most published user data are available and, where relevant, where the largest user population exists. The review covers methodologies and system descriptions. The Analysis sections of the review discuss ambulation performance, patient-training aspects, and, when available, multi-user medical, physiological, and psychological evaluation data. A comparative tabulation is given in the Synthesis section of the review.