Clinical trials

Spinal cord injuries (SCIs) and disorders remain one of the most debilitating conditions today, and traumatic SCI is one of the leading causes of lost human potential globally. Despite decades of research, there remain no robust interventions to reliably improve neurologic outcomes post-SCI in humans. Various interventions including early surgical decompression, steroid administration, and stem cell therapies have demonstrated mixed results in preclinical and clinical trials. Many of these therapies aim to prevent the loss of spinal connections or to restore new ones to improve neurologic recovery. Another approach has been to focus on modulating the remaining local spinal circuits while engaging supraspinal centers through intensive rehabilitation to produce meaningful recovery. However, the evidence available in terms of human clinical trials for this approach is heterogeneous. In this chapter, we thus aim to provide an overview of recent clinical trials that have attempted to address rehabilitative approaches for persons with SCI.