Researchers at the B.C. Institute of Technology are trying to help paraplegics and quadriplegics with an everyday problem that gets ignored in the high-profile quest to regenerate damaged spinal cords: how to help people have a satisfactory sex life.

Eight prototypes of a vibrator for male and female paraplegics and quadriplegics have been developed at the post-secondary institution. They will be tested in a clinical trial in October.

'The ability to feel altered arousal or even orgasm is a huge priority.'-Sexual medicine researcher Dr. Stacy Elliott

Developers of the vibro-stimulation device hope it will be commercially available around the world to address the often-ignored sexual needs of people with disabilities. 

"I think there's a lot of resentment that sexuality hasn't been paid attention to even though it's a priority," said Dr. Stacy Elliott, director of the B.C. Centre for Sexual Medicine, who will lead the clinical trial.

According to a 2004 survey of 681 spinal-cord injured people in the United States, paraplegics ranked regaining sexual function as their highest priority, above improving bladder and bowel function. The survey results were published in the Journal of Neurotrauma.

Elliott said people with spinal cord injuries often use vibrators for sexual arousal because their brains can't recognize physical touch and a powerful "souped-up" device is needed.

The high-frequency device developed at BCIT is similar to vibrators used in Elliott's clinic to medically retrieve sperm to enable disabled men to become fathers.

"The ability to feel altered arousal or even orgasm is a huge priority so if these vibrators can aid in a higher percentage of people being able to feel more pleasure then that will be a huge contribution," Elliott said.

"We can never separate mind and body in sexual medicine so that's the whole key."

Vibrators sold in sex shops aren't powerful enough because nerve changes after a spinal cord injury are akin to a telephone line being cut, meaning signals from the brain aren't felt in the body, Elliott said.

User-friendly design

Also traditional vibrators aren't ergonomically suitable for people with spinal cord injuries because of issues such as limited hand movement.

They were hard to hold, they were super expensive. They might heat up — but if you didn't have good sensation you wouldn't be able to feel the heat, Elliott said.

Issues such as how the device is gripped, manipulated, and controlled have all been taken into account in the design process, which included input from focus groups, said Nigel Halsted, research assistant in the B.C. Institute of Technology's Health Technology Research Group.

Dave Hinton, executive director of the Canadian Paraplegic Association, said about 40,000 people across the country live with some kind of spinal cord injury. Sexuality is a popular topic at support groups across Canada, he said.

"Any time that there is an appliance, a procedure, anything along that line that's going to improve the quality of life for somebody with a spinal cord injury and as long as it's properly tested and medically approved, then of course, we support those sorts of things," Hinton said from Ottawa.

The vibrator was developed with funding through the University of B.C.-based International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries research centre, affiliated with the Rick Hansen Man in Motion Foundation.