Our trials are giving hope, but we urgently need to reach more Australians
Help Project Spark reach more people across the country
After 12 weeks on our Project Spark neurostimulation trial, Sheree Palmer walked across the room aided only by a single crutch and callipers.
Your kind gift today can help us take this life-changing opportunity to even more Australians living with the devastating consequences of a spinal cord injury.
Please donate today
Or call: 1800 774 625
Donations of $2 or more are tax-deductible for Australian residents.
How your gift will help
This year, we’re expanding our trial sites to include Adelaide, Perth and New Zealand. We have achieved so much with our Project Spark trials but there is still so much more to do.
$30
Can help fund a researcher working on our potentially life-changing studies.
$75
Can help pay for an exercise physiologist to provide neurostimulation therapy as part of a Project Spark trial.
$120
Can help support a spinal injured Australian to take part in a neurostimulation trial.
$250
Can help us set up a new neurostimulation trial site.
Sheree Palmer
WE URGENTLY NEED YOUR HELP TO EXPAND PROJECT SPARK.
Your support will help us provide a potentially life-changing treatment to 300 more people.
In 2008 Sheree was doing some exercises in her front room and her legs just went numb. She’d suffered a spinal embolism and little did she know that she would never be able to walk again. Until she went on the eWALK trial.
“It can literally happen to anyone. One day I was walking around and the next I wasn’t. That’s why SpinalCure is such an important cause to support.”
“Once I started the trial, I’d be lying in bed, and I could actually feel my muscles and quadriceps flickering. Still to this day, I can feel the transfer of weight going through my feet so it’s definitely strengthened that signal through my legs."
What is neurostimulation
Neurostimulation is using electricity to stimulate the spinal cord. Traditionally we’ve only been able to stimulate the muscles directly. Now we can hone into the nerves that control the muscles directly from the spinal cord itself. It’s a simple idea but it has potentially revolutionary results.
If you think of a spinal injury like a crash on a 4-lane motorway. Some roads are blocked, Neurostimulation finds ways to get around these blockages so the traffic can still flow. Messages from the brain can still reach their destination. Watch the video for a full breakdown, it’s truely fascinating and life changing
You can help us expand Project Spark and get closer to a cure for spinal injury.
Sheree is one of over 50 people fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to try these world-leading experimental therapies so far.
Over the next two to three years, with your help, we are determined to further expand Project Spark to 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 the first half of 2025.