PROJECT SPARK
We’ve made great progress this year in our quest for a cure. So that we can touch even more lives impacted by spinal cord injury, we urgently need more funds for critical research resources to help drive our Project Spark neurostimulation trials.
Help us accelerate Project Spark by funding critical research resources
After 12 weeks on our Project Spark neurostimulation trial, Terry Lewis walked the full 120 metres of a room only assisted by a light walking frame, with minimal support from the research team.
Facilitating our Project Spark trials entail a huge amount of costly resources that are essential to run them successfully. This includes equipment, research staff and costs to support our volunteer participants while they are on the trial, like their travel expenses to and from trial sites. Your kind support over the festive season will help us fund these and give the ultimate gift to Australians living with spinal cord injury – the opportunity to fast-track a cure.
Please donate today
Donations of $2 or more are tax-deductible for Australian residents.
Or call: 1800 774 625
How your gift will help
This year, we have expanded our trial sites to include Adelaide, Canberra and New Zealand. We will also be broadening our reach to Perth and opening additional sites in Sydney and regional NSW in 2025. This means that we need even more essential research resources to ensure Project Spark’s success, paving the way for neurostimulation to be introduced as a potential new treatment option for spinal cord injury.
$50
Can cover a portion of travel expenses for a patient to and from a trial site.
$250
Could cover a night of specialised disability accommodation.
$400
Can help pay for an exercise physiologist's time to provide neurostimulation therapy for a single trial participant.
$600
Can help fund vital consent and reflex testing needed to assess participants at the start of their trial journey.
Terry Lewis
WE URGENTLY NEED YOUR HELP TO EXPAND PROJECT SPARK
In 2018, Terry Lewis’ life was devastated by an accident at work. This initially left him with a serious but, he thought, manageable back injury. A few months later the true cataclysmic impact of his injury was revealed when he became a paraplegic and was confined to a wheelchair. Then he joined our eWALK neurostimulation trial which gave him hope that a cure for spinal cord injury was not a matter of ‘if’ but a matter of ‘when’.
“Finding a cure would mean the world to me. I've got a daughter who I want to be able to walk down the aisle one day, a son whose wedding I want to dance at and a little granddaughter who I want to be able to take to the beach for a swim one day. Donations and support to help SpinalCure speed up the pace of the research are vital.”
What is neurostimulation
Neurostimulation is globally accepted as the most promising experimental therapy for people living with a spinal cord injury (SCI).
Our Project Spark clinical trials focus on non-invasive neurostimulation, using electrodes placed onto the skin.
This enhances the function of the spinal cord by sending electrical pulses into the nerves around the injury, helping to facilitate communication between the brain and body through surviving neural pathways.
Traditionally we've only been able too stimulate the muscles directly, but now we can home into the nerves that control the muscles directly but now we can home into the nerves that control the muscles right from the spinal cord itself.
A unique idea with potential for revolutionary results
Small international studies have shown life-changing functional recovery such as:
So far, no other experimental therapy for SCI has shown an equivalent level of meaningful return to feeling and function in trial participants.
It's also the only therapy that has the potential to be ready for mainstream distribution in the short-term.
You can help us expedite the pace of Project Spark and give the gift of a cure for spinal cord injuries
Terry is one of over 75 people fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to try this world-leading experimental that holds much promise as a cure for spinal cord injury.
With your help, we are determined to further resource and progress Project Spark so that we increase this figure to over 300.
Project Spark is still exploring the benefits of neurostimulation, if trial results support it, we plan to make it publicly available as a treatment option.
*Important information: eWALK is a rigorous double blinded sham controlled clinical trial. Every volunteer receives 12 weeks of intensive exercise therapy. However, volunteers and scientists do not know whether a volunteer is receiving real or sham stimulation. This information will be available when eWALK results are finalised, which is anticipated to be in 2025.