An excellent newspaper report on the topic of developments in pacemakers and neurostimulators was published in The Boston Globe this week:
Pacemakers aren't just for the heart anymore
By Ken Howard Wilan
The Boston Globe
March 8, 2005
[ ... Read the full article ... ]
[snip]
Spurred by the pacemaker industry, researchers are currently testing or considering using neurostimulators to treat a host of conditions, including urinary incontinence, epilepsy, migraine headaches, Parkinson's disease tremors, erectile dysfunction, depression, back pain, poor digestion and overeating in obese patients.
''It's not just the heart which can be paced," explained Dr. Stephen Oesterle, senior vice president for medicine and technology at the Minneapolis-based medical devices company, Medtronic, which makes pacemakers. ''Every tissue in the body functions because of an electrical or chemical-electrical reaction. All of a sudden you look around the body and realize you can stimulate anything which has electricity running through it."
[snip]
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