The former CEO of Medtronic, Omar Ishrak, had previously urged the pelvic company to bet on expansion in Tibial nervous treatments towards the end of his mandate, which ended in 2020, said Matt Stonehouse, vice-president of research and development at Medtronic Pelvic Health. This led to the start of the Altaviva project. The development of the implant, largely based in the company’s Rice Creek facilities, started during the pandemic.
“We had to understand how to do research and development at a time when the world was a bit upside down,” said Stonehouse.
The result of this R&D is a silver implant marked by an active electrode and a return electrode, where energy flows into the ankle. Partly, the device relies on A Prior Medronics implant inserted in the lower back stimulating the sacred nerve. But unlike his predecessor, Altaviva has no son administering stimulation.
With the help of a prosthetic bottom leg, Matt Stonehouse of Medtronic shows how the Altaviva device is placed under the skin near a patient’s ankle. (Jeff Wheeler / The Minnesota Star Tribune)
In the installation of Rice Creek recently, Stonehouse used a prosthetic lower leg for Demonstrate the procedure, which takes about 15 minutes once a patient is on the table. After making an incision of Less than 2 centimeters on the inner ankle, he checked if he had reached the connective tissue called fascia. Above this layer, he inserted a tool into the incision to create a pocket and slipped the implant into the right under the skin.
The competitor’s device, said Stonehouse, goes below the fascia: “It’s just a more invasive procedure.”
Once the device lights up, which occurs before the patient leaves the office, he sends energy through the nerves to the bladder to regulate his wiring to better communicate with the brain.
