Jacques Teissier from Montpellier, surgeon at the Saint-Jean clinic, has been operating on paraplegic patients for forty years to give them the ability to use their hands again. If possible, he performs tendon transfers. Then he used an American neurostimulation implant until the beginning of 2000. Today he leads the pioneers who are testing the French implant developed by the start-up Neurinnov in Montpellier.
Doctor Jacques Teissier, surgeon, is one of the cornerstones of the European Habilis project led by USSAP, the health center in Roussillon that houses the reference center for neurological and traumatological diseases, Bouffard Vercelli.
Habilis wants to give tetraplegics the ability to use their hands again with the help of implants developed by Montpellier company Neurinnov. For all patients, the adventure begins in an operating room at the Saint-Jean Clinic in Montpellier.
It started much earlier for Jacques Teissier, during a 1978 congress in Edinburgh that paved the way for functional hand surgery in tetraplegics. In most cases, this is a tendon transfer that can, under certain circumstances, restore mobility to people with disabilities.
An American implant
“These people have what is called low quadriplegia, where the muscles work below the elbow. This is the case for 80% of quadriplegics,” recalls Dr. Teissier, one of the world pioneers of future intervention after the 1982 Gien Congress.
“We were a bunch of insiders. I was a young clinic director, I had taken part in it together with Professor Yves Alleu,” recalls Jacques Teissier, former head of the traumatology department at the Montpellier University Hospital.
The NeurInnov implant is primarily intended for patients with “high” quadriplegia who do not have a muscle under the elbow. It is the same indication as the American “Free Hand” that Jacques Teissier placed “in a dozen people”, although he was aware of the imperfections: “It was a complex system with invasive surgery, around eight cables with the to connect electrodes. Over time, it happened that electrodes went under the skin and the cables were led out…”
The still “fantastic” experience provided an insight into the current development: “We had to simplify the system.”
“It’s simple, efficient and reliable”
In the last five years, Dr. Teissier has already operated on eight patients with the NeurInnov implant. Only four, including Maxime Muzel, lived with the implant for a month to test the device in everyday gestures, the others did not keep the electrodes, which were placed during another surgical procedure to make some adjustments.
“In the third phase, the implant will be final,” Jacques Teissier recalls and is confident: “It is simple, effective, energy-efficient and reliable. It is a procedure that lasts no more than two hours and that can benefit many patients.” “.
Will we one day be able to control the device through thought? He too has his own idea on the subject: “An electrode should be implanted in the ascending frontal zone. That would be the pinnacle of the system. We will get there, in the coming decade the technology will advance very quickly,” hopes Jacques Teissier, who explains that the Franco-Swiss technology benefiting Gert-Jan Oskam is different from what scientists from Montpellier imagined : “The Swiss ‘bridged’ the spinal cord injury, here the injury is repaired by connecting the brain.” to the spinal cord, under the injured person. In theory, the first option is ideal. But it must also be said that only a few patients are suitable for this very invasive technique.”