Quadriplegic man first in Chicago to participate in research for robotic prosthetic limbs: ‘We always need to figure out a new way to do things’

CHICAGO – The first time Scott Imbrie cried over his catastrophic injury, he was looking out over Lake Michigan from a room inside the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

But as soon as the tears came, so did the determination.

“I decided that no matter how things turn out, I’m going to figure out a new way to do things,” Imbrie, 58, said.

After decades of finding creative ways to live life following a car accident that left him without full use of his legs and arms, Imbrie is now at the forefront of new research seeking to give paralyzed people or amputees more control through robotic limbs.

Imbrie was the first person in Chicago to participate in the study, which is in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh and aims to better understand how the brain receives and sends motor and sensory signals. In October, a surgeon at the University of Chicago Medicine implanted electrodes into his brain, which can allow him to manipulate a hand in a virtual reality environment.

Ultimately, researchers hope this could change the prognosis for people who have catastrophic spine injuries, or amputations, even leading to research that could help them fully regain movement.

“The long-term view is what keeps me excited,” said John Downey, a staff scientist at the University of Chicago. “We should be able to create a prosthetic that they integrate into their everyday life as though it was their own arm.”

Imbrie’s injury occurred on April 29, 1985, “a day I’ll never forget in my life,” he said. He was 22 and driving a car he’d only had six weeks. The car malfunctioned, causing him to careen across traffic at Milwaukee Avenue. His seat belt did not work.

“The waist part worked over the lap, but the shoulder harness didn’t,” he said. “My chest hit the steering wheel. I hyperextended my neck.”

He broke his C4, C5 and C6 vertebrae.

“When I woke up five days later, a doctor was leaning over me and said I was going to be a quadriplegic,” he recalled.

Imbrie cursed at him.

“That’s where my journey began,” he said.

After weeks of waiting for swelling would go down, he began trying to regain his abilities, beginning with wanting to change the television channel. That required moving to the television and switching the channel by hand. His nurses offered, but he was determined.

“I finally changed the channel on the TV by myself, and I was like, ‘I’m walking out of here,’” he said.

Even though doctors said it was unlikely, he was able to eventually relearn how to walk.

The positive attitude that helped steer him has only continued as he built a life full of things he loves, including gardening that became a landscaping business, fishing, eating dinner with his sister and spending time with his nieces and nephews.

“Family is very important to me,” he said. “It keeps me grounded, it keeps me focused on staying positive.”

Imbrie is what is considered an incomplete quadriplegic; for example, his right hand is paralyzed but, he said, “I just figured out how to do things with it.” He learned to pick up kitchen utensils by using tendon muscles to pull his fingers closed around something.

“I still manage to do a lot of things I enjoy,” he said.

He added, “I’ve always felt very blessed about the ability I was given.”

That attitude is what helped lead him to the research. Always keeping an eye out for relevant studies, he brought family members when he met with researchers. They, too, were excited. “Then I knew for sure, there was no question.”

In October, he underwent surgery where electrodes were implanted on the left side of his brain. Now, he spends about four hours a day, three days a week, working with researchers. During his sessions, he uses his mind to move a floating hand in a virtual setting, for example reaching to pick up a cup from a table. He also concentrates as researchers feed his brain sensory information, and assess whether and where he can feel sensation on his skin. Later this year, the team will add a prosthetic hand and arm for Imbrie to use.

The brains of paralyzed people can still generate signals that would control movement, but those signals can’t make it past the injury, Downey explained. They hope this research will allow them to better interpret these brain signals and eventually use that toward control of a prosthetic. Researchers are still looking for quadriplegic people to enter the study.

Downey said this kind of research could hugely affect someone’s independence; the first person in the study, for example, had complete paralysis below the neck. For someone like this, even to be able to adjust their own blanket improves their quality of life. “Even rudimentary control of one arm would give her independence, some privacy, sit in a room by herself for a few hours,” he said.

“A spinal cord injury is such a change to someone’s life,” he said. “To be able to turn that back, would be incredible.”

It’s meaningful, Imbrie said, to feel he is part of something that could alter a stranger’s trajectory. Perhaps when a future young person arrives in an emergency room after a car wreck, they will hear a different prognosis.

“As long as I can give them more information in the study, I plan on being here for 10, 15 years,” he said.

In the short term, he hopes that sharing his story helps others, whether they are paralyzed or not.

“Hopefully, I can rub off on someone else so they stay a little more positive,” he said. “We always need to figure out a new way to do things, as life goes on.”

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