The Q-Stim™ pacing system has been designed to provide therapeutic neurostimulation for a wide range of indications, including:

Bone healing and repair, and the use of electrical current to stimulate bone growth.

Cardiac pacing: Including tachycardia, bradycardia, and demand pacing.

Depression: Q-Stim may provide vagus nerve stimulation to reduce the symptoms of chronic depression.

Epilepsy: Q-Stim may stimulate the sacral nerve or thalamus to reduce symptoms of epilepsy.

Functional electrical stimulation: Q-Stim may be used to enhance or restore bodily functions or movement in patients with peripheral nerve or spinal cord damage.

Gastrointestinal motility disorders: Q-Stim may pace from proximal to distal sectors of the digestive organs, helping regulate peristaltic waves and accelerate nutrient flow in patients who suffer delayed emptying.

Incontinence.

Migraines: Q-Stim may provide neurostimulation to the deep brain to treat migraines.

Muscle spasticity.

Obesity: Q-Stim may pace from the distal to the proximal stomach to promote feelings of fullness or satiety in patients who suffer obesity, and so help reduce caloric intake.

Pain management: Q-Stim may be used as a spinal cord or peripheral nerve stimulator to block pain sensations from reaching the brain.

Parkinson’s disease: Q-Stim may provide deep brain stimulation of the thalamus to relieve muscle tremors and rigidity associated with Parkinson’s disease.

Sleep apnea: Q-Stim may provide neurostimulation to the hypoglossal nerve to treat sleep apnea.

In the longer term, Q-Stim may also provide therapeutic neurostimulation for Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, bulimia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette’s syndrome, and other ailments. As Dr. Ali R. Rezai, director of functional neurosurgery at the Cleveland Clinic, has said of neurostimulation in general: “Any organ that a nerve can influence – and that’s every organ in the body – can be affected using this technology.”

Virginia Technologies has developed reference designs and a prototype Q-Stim neurostimulator, with an eye toward treating these and other indications. The company would be happy to review these with developers who wish to license Q-Stim technology for their own therapeutic devices. To explore this opportunity, please click here.

back to top >