Representatives of federal healthcare agencies familiarized with KFU’s advanced neuromodulation treatments
Chief Invited Expert on Medical Rehabilitation of the Ministry of Health of Russia Galina Ivanova, Deputy General Director of the Federal Medical-Biological Agency Vladimir Baklaushev, and Chief Invited Expert on Medical Rehabilitation of the Ministry of Health of Tatarstan Rezeda Bodrova visited the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology.
At the Institute’s Research Clinical Center, they were accompanied by Chief Medical Officer of the University Clinic Rinat Shigabutdinov, Deputy Director of the Institute for Research Rashat Faizullin, and Deputy Director for Internships and Clinical Practice Raushaniya Gaifullina.
“We came to Kazan University to learn more about the activities it is carrying out to help patients with spinal cord injuries. Kazan University has quite a lot of experience in invasive and non-invasive stimulation of the spinal cord in patients. This center has obtained interesting scientific results, which, according to our assumptions, should play an important role in the rehabilitation of severe patients with spinal cord injuries. We came together with a representative of the Federal Center for Brain and Neurotechnology to get acquainted with the obtained results in detail and to agree on joint research in which the Russian Government is interested. These studies are very important for Russian healthcare. In most cases, the methods used today to recover patients with severe spinal cord injuries are not effective enough. Exoskeletons and robotic equipment are being created to help such patients. It would be wonderful to use several technologies at once to rehabilitate such patients,” said Ivanova to the media.
Mr Baklaushev is overseeing a spinal cord injury in the FMBA.
“This project involves the realization of preclinical developments, which are carried out in the Federal Medical-Biological Agency under the direct supervision of our head Veronika Skvortsova, who is a neurologist. As part of this project, we are trying to develop regenerative and combined therapy technologies for spinal trauma. Very important aspects of our developments are rehabilitation and neuromodulation (epidural stimulation of the spinal cord). When we started looking for collaborators, we found out that Kazan Federal University has an area that is supervised by Igor Lavrov, one of the developers of the neuromodulation concept. We offered KFU a collaboration. KFU will be directly involved in the upcoming clinical trial. I don’t know of any other center in Russia that which such experience in the field of epidural spinal cord stimulation. We want to combine epidural electrical stimulation with regenerative stimulation and thus increase the effectiveness of therapy, i.e. improve the degree of spinal cord recovery. Nothing like this has been done in Russia so far. We are planning to conduct a multicenter study together with Kazan Federal University, which will use the unique clinical experience of KFU employees involved in rehabilitation, and we are full of hope for success, that we will be able to help spinal patients to recover their motor function,” he said.
Research Associate Alyona Militskova (Laboratory of Neuromodulation) accompanied the guests thrrough the Center and spoke about electrical stimulation of spinal cord injury. Over 50 patients have already undergone such treatment.
A seminar then followed on the same topic with participaton from the guests and KFU employees.