A free educational webinar with Francesca de Santi and Patricia O'Brien, MS, OTR/L, on how ARCEX Therapy is being used in the clinic and at home to improve hand sensation and strength after a chronic cervical spinal cord injury. The full recording is now available below.
For people living with a chronic cervical spinal cord injury, hand function and sensation shape nearly every part of daily life, from self-care to mealtime to connection with others. ARCEX Therapy is the first system cleared in the United States for non-invasive spinal cord stimulation in people with SCI, designed to be used alongside functional task practice in the clinic and at home.
In this sponsored educational webinar, Francesca de Santi, Director Global Medical Education at ONWARD Medical, will introduce the science behind transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation (tSCS), the published evidence supporting ARCEX Therapy, and how the system is used in practice. She will then hand the floor to Patricia O'Brien, an occupational therapist with deep experience in spinal cord injury rehabilitation, for a conversation about what activity-based, functional rehabilitation looks like for people with cervical SCI and how clinicians can build daily-life goals into therapy sessions.
The session is designed for people with SCI, family members, and rehabilitation professionals across the US and Canada. A live question-and-answer segment will follow the presentation.
Published in Nature Medicine
Francesca de Santi leads global medical education at ONWARD Medical, where she works with rehabilitation professionals, researchers, and community partners to translate the science of spinal cord stimulation into practical knowledge that clinicians and people with SCI can use. In this webinar, she will walk through how ARCEX Therapy delivers programmed transcutaneous electrical stimulation, what the clinical evidence shows, and how the system fits within current rehabilitation approaches.
Patricia (Tricia) O'Brien is a Chicago-based occupational therapist whose career has spanned the full lifespan of clients and a wide range of clinical settings. At Shriners Hospitals for Children, she served as the lead OT on the spinal cord injury team, training staff and students in SCI care and contributing to a long-running research study that followed pediatric SCI patients into adulthood to track quality of life. More recently she has worked in acute care and inpatient rehabilitation with adults across diagnoses, including stroke and neurological injury. Tricia earned her undergraduate degree in Kinesiology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and her Master of Science in Occupational Therapy from Rush University in Chicago. In this webinar, she will share a working clinician's perspective on functional rehabilitation for people with cervical SCI and how therapists can build daily-life goals into each session.
The session combines a short presentation with a moderated panel discussion. Topics will include:
Recording Now Available
The full recording is now available on demand for anyone who could not attend live or wants to revisit the conversation.
Have a follow-up question for ONWARD Medical? Visit the ONWARD support page.
From using a fork to self-catheterization, hand sensation and strength underpin the tasks that define independence. ARCEX targets both.
Results from the Up-LIFT, Pathfinder II, and LIFT Home studies have been published in Nature Medicine, Neuromodulation, and Neurology: Clinical Practice.
The LIFT Home study reported a 96 percent home session completion rate, with in-clinic benefits maintained or further enhanced at home.
Patricia O'Brien brings years of clinical experience treating people with spinal cord injury, including leading the OT side of the SCI team at Shriners Hospitals for Children. Real-world clinical perspective, not a research lab.
The system is cleared for adults ages 18 to 75 with chronic, non-progressive incomplete cervical SCI (C2 to C8, AIS B, C, or D).
A moderated panel discussion and audience question segment follow the presentation, so attendees can ask the speakers directly.
ONWARD Medical is a medical technology company developing neuromodulation therapies to restore movement, function, and independence for people living with spinal cord injury. The company works across three therapy platforms, including ARCEX (external, commercially available in the US and Europe), ARCIM (implanted, in pivotal trials), and ARCBCI (brain-computer interface enabled, in clinical feasibility).
ARCEX is the first system cleared for non-invasive spinal cord stimulation for people with SCI and is now available in rehabilitation clinics across the US. The company has received multiple FDA Breakthrough Device Designations and has published peer-reviewed evidence across pivotal, community-based, and at-home studies.
This educational webinar is produced as part of a sponsorship partnership between ONWARD Medical and the North American Spinal Cord Injury Consortium (NASCIC). The views and clinical experiences shared by the speakers are their own. NASCIC provides this content as an educational resource for the SCI community and does not endorse any specific commercial product or medical device. The ARCEX System is cleared for use in the United States only. Individuals should consult their healthcare provider to determine whether a therapy is appropriate for their situation.
The full recording is available on demand for people with SCI, caregivers, family members, and rehabilitation professionals across the US and Canada.
