In 2008, Dutch-born mother of three Hanneke de Bruijne was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Over the next few years, her life would gradually deteriorate. She lost her ability to move her legs, arms, and even her face. Simply breathing required a mechanical ventilator. De Bruijne was bound to a wheelchair, struggling to communicate with her family.
However, things began to look up in 2015, when she received a brain implant that could give her the ability to communicate anywhere in the world.
“The implant gives me freedom, independence and safety,” de Bruijne wrote in an email to CNN composed on a tablet linked to her implant. “It enables me to enjoy my garden and going outdoors in nature.”
Like many people who have ALS, de Bruijne communicated by blinking or with an eye-tracking device, which was quite limiting because the device needs adequate lighting in order to register the eye movements properly.
“This implant allows me to communicate outdoors when my eye tracker doesn’t work (the eye tracker almost never works outdoors due to ambient lighting),” she told CNN.
The brain implant, known as a brain-computer interface, gave de Bruijne the ability to put together accurate messages using a computer typing program, which analyzed her brain activity.
The implant’s success and de Bruijne’s story were documented in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine by researchers from the University medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands.
“It’s a fully implantable system that works at home without need for any experts to make it work,” said Nick Ramsey, professor of neuroscience at the Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, part of University Medical School Utrecht. “…We wanted to give these patients back their dignity.”
ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that impacts the nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. As the nerve cells deteriorate, many people lose their motor skills and their ability to move or communicate. More than 6,000 people are diagnosed with ALS in the U.S. each year, and nearly 20,000 Americans live with the disease at any given moment.
The new brain computer implant is unlike the eye-tracking device because it detects signals from the brain while someone is thinking about moving a muscle. Although many people with ALS eventually lose their ability to talk, their brains continue to generate electricity.
Currently, the communication process with the implant is slow, but it shows great promise. In order to compose a message, the patient looks at a square moving over the letters on the screen. When the box is on their desired letter, they try to move their right hand. Even though they can’t actually move their right hand, their brains still create the corresponding signal. The implant picks up on the signal through the transmitter and flags the letter.
De Bruijne is able to communicate with her eye tracker faster, but the implant is more accurate and effective. Dr. Ramsey says he plans to make the implant faster and more sophisticated.
There is still a long road ahead before the technology is widely available and more advanced, but for now de Bruijne’s life has changed significantly for the better.
“She can go outside, and she has been able to travel,” Dr. Ramsey said. “She likes to run her family and is in charge of her household.”
Danielle Tarasiuk is a multimedia journalist based in Los Angeles. Her work has been published on AllDay.com, Yahoo! Sports, KCET, and NPR-affiliate stations KPCC and KCRW. She’s a proud Sarah Lawrence College and USC Annenberg alumn.
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