Just got the latest issue of Spinal Cord, the official journal of the International Spinal Cord Society. This publication is the mother ship for clinical research in SCI. Here’s an eye opener: “Risk of mortality after spinal cord injury: relationship with social support, education and income,” by JS Krause and RE Carter, both from the Medical University of South Carolina, makes the point that while death rates have fallen a bit in the very early years post SCI, the long term survival rates have plateaued. Why? It’s not necessarily because of medicine, perhaps, but more so because of one’s environment and income level. Continue Reading »

Also known as undifferentiated cells, stem cells are a unique type of cells that have the ability to divide rapidly and differentiate into a wide range of specialized cells. Thus, stem cells have two characteristic features: one — the ability to divide ceaselessly through innumerable cycles of mitotic cell division, and two — the potential to differentiate into different cell types. Stem cells are either totipotent (that is they can form embryonic cells), or pluripotent (that is they can form all kinds of cells found in the body). Unipotent cells that have the self-renewing capability, and multipotent cells that can differentiate into closely related cells, are also sometimes referred to as stem cells. Continue Reading »

The Reeve Foundation’s Paralysis Resource Center has the largest known collection of books and videos on paralysis. You can use our online catalog to find materials on all topics related to paralysis from any cause: multiple sclerosis, stroke, cerebral palsy and spinal cord injury to name a few. We also have items on secondary conditions related to these diagnoses (pain, bladder management) as well as books on living with a disability (traveling or employment with a disability). Continue Reading »

Service dogs do more than just help the visually impaired navigate a crosswalk. Someone living with paralysis could use a service dog, typically Labrador and Golden Retrievers, to pick up any dropped item, fetch packages in grocery stores, turn lights on and off, make emergency telephone calls, help with balance, and even make transactions with money at a bank or store. Continue Reading »

The American Dietetic Association has published new evidence-based nutrition practice guidelines for registered dietitians on nutrition care for patients with spinal cord injury.

The guidelines contain systematically developed recommendations to assist practitioners in appropriate nutrition care Continue Reading »

What do you know about bedsores? They come from too much pressure on your skin in one place for too long. If you are paralyzed, and have no sensation, say, on your butt, you might not even be aware you have one. And it can kill you.

Believe it or not, an ongoing controversy concerning whether or not bedsores are preventable was resolved when Medicare declared pressure ulcers (bedsores) a “never event”, i.e. a medical error. Continue Reading »

In the evaluation of spinal injuries, they are often classified as complete or incomplete injuries. Traditionally, a complete spinal cord injury meant that there was no motor or sensory function below the level of lesion. But at times these definitions are difficult to apply and can create confusion.

For example it is common to have zone of partial preservation in many spinal injuries which is an area of preserved partial sensation below the injury site but below which no significant motor and sensory function is present. Continue Reading »

For an injury to be considered catastrophic, it must occur without any warning. It must also disrupt your life is some way, whether by inhibiting you from working a full-time job or by keeping your from experiencing your life in the way you had previous to the injury. It takes a lot to manage this kind of injury. It often takes several health care professionals and experts to tend to the injured as they go from the hospital to rehab and back into their community and home.

The financial burden that falls on the injured nearly always requires that they find a good injury attorney to make their life a bit easier. These attorneys work closely with professionals in the health care industry as well as rehabilitation medications. Continue Reading »

Although macrophages (MΦ) are known as essential players in wound healing, their contribution to recovery from spinal cord injury (SCI) is a subject of debate. The difficulties in distinguishing between different MΦ subpopulations at the lesion site have further contributed to the controversy and led to the common view of MΦ as functionally homogenous. Given the massive accumulation in the injured spinal cord of activated resident microglia, which are the native immune occupants of the central nervous system (CNS), the recruitment of additional infiltrating monocytes from the peripheral blood seems puzzling. A key question that remains is whether the infiltrating monocyte-derived MΦ contribute to repair, or represent an unavoidable detrimental response. The hypothesis of the current study is that a specific population of infiltrating monocyte-derived MΦ is functionally distinct from the inflammatory resident microglia and is essential for recovery from SCI. Continue Reading »

Stem cells are unspecialized cells that have in them the attendance of two defining properties which makes them unique and a very interesting subject of study. These are: the skill to differentiate into other cells and the skill to self-regenerate. The ability to differentiate is the possible of the stem cells to expand into other cell types. A totipotent stem cell is a type of stem cell that can go on to develop into all cell types including the embryonic membranes. With these type of revolutionary benefits associated with them it becomes all the more obvious that there will be many research institutes and Cell Therapy Locations working all over the world specializing in treatments using stem cell therapy and offering remarkable results. Scientists have been working towards using stem cell therapy towards the cure of diseases including Alzheimer’s diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, osteoarthritis, , heart disease, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis. Continue Reading »