Scientists make Mice Walk After Spinal Cord Injury

Have you ever wondered how we move our hand, feet and other parts of the body? It is through signals emanating from brain giving directions. But if spinal cord, the vertebral tissue connecting brain and lower part of spine, is damaged or injured, it effects our movements of limbs and in some cases other parts of the body leading to paralysis.

Injury to spinal cord results in nerve damage which is due to trauma or injury to vertebral column thus effecting brain’s signaling ability. Till recently doctors were of opinion that the only solution to making a patient with this kind of Disability to move his lower limb was to reproduce the long nerve linking brain and end of spine. But UCLA conducted a study for the first time showing that a new shorter path can be created by our nervous system to restore the cells required for moving lower limb. Continue Reading »

Gymnasium is fit for people with disability

A COMMUNITY-based gymnasium for people with a physical Disability has started in Sutherland Shire.

The Burn Rubber Burn centre is an initiative of the NSW State Spinal Cord Injury Service, the RTA and the Police Citizens Youth Club.

The gymnasium is at Sutherland PCYC, next to Sutherland Leisure Centre, off Rawson Avenue, Sutherland.

Burn Rubber Burn was formed originally for people with a spinal cord injury, but the centres of which there are three in NSW have expanded to accept amputees and people with neurological disabilities such as multiple sclerosis, stroke and spina bifida.

Exercise physiologists trained in disabilities operate the gymnasiums.
Continue Reading »

Now, Aussie hope for Manjunath

NEW DELHI: On Friday, Manjunath Kalmani received a special visitor at his bedside at the Safdarjung Hospital’s intensive care unit.

After reading the paralysed techie’s story in TOI, 33-year-old Australian Perry Cross, who too suffered a similar injury 14 years ago, and is paralysed neck down, decided to meet Manjunath to given him hope and boost his morale.

It was an emotional meeting. Perry recounted his post-injury days in hospital and Manjunath saw a glimmer of hope. In April 1994, Perry suffered a C2 level spinal cord injury during a football match back home. After spending more than a year in hospital, Perry was rehabilitated with the help of latest technology and good nursing assistance. Continue Reading »

Kelly Brush- Skiing with a purpose

It would be understandable if Kelly Brush filled her days with what-ifs.

What if the fencing along the giant slalom course at Jiminy Peak had been better? What if the padding on the chair lift tower had been thicker? What if she hadn’t caught that edge?

But those questions don’t yield any substantive answers. They are part of a past that Brush, a senior at Middlebury College who was paralyzed in a ski racing accident two years ago, doesn’t see the need to dwell in.

Instead, Brush is focused on the future — her own and that of the sport she loves. Through the Kelly Brush Foundation, the 21-year-old is seeking to improve safety conditions and safety awareness in ski racing. Continue Reading »

Spinal Cord Injury May Not Increase Risk of Heart Disease

Newswise — Americans who live with spinal cord injury do not appear to be at greater risk of developing carbohydrate and lipid disorders such as insulin resistance, diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance, and high or low blood cholesterol levels – risk factors for heart disease – than able-bodied persons, according to a new evidence review by HHS’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

More than a quarter million Americans live with a Disability due to spinal cord injury, and 11,000 are hospitalized annually. Spinal cord injury is usually caused by a sudden traumatic blow to the spine such as from accidents or violent events, including combat. Continue Reading »

Segway helps disabled man more than wheelchair

My patient was bleeding profusely from the esophagus, and as a first-year gastroenterology fellow, I had been called in to the UCSF intensive care unit to stop it. We were successful. The next morning, Jan. 4, 2003, I went out for a bike ride – but never made it home.

In a freak accident, I was thrown headfirst over my handlebars and paralyzed from the shoulders down. At San Francisco General, my pulse and blood pressure crashed. The trauma team, my own colleagues, administered life-saving dopamine and rushed me to the ICU. I spent five days there, barely able to breathe, staring at my motionless limbs, powerless to will them to move.

Astoundingly, within days, I began regaining slight movements, first in my left leg, then my right. I was transferred to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, an elite spinal-cord injury treatment center, where I underwent intensive rehab. There, my recovery continued, and I slowly exceeded the expectations of my therapists. My progress kept optimism alive, as my left arm started to move, and then my recalcitrant right. Continue Reading »

Mother, daughter duo beat disability

It’s been an addiction since she tried it in New York City one year after the car accident.

Melinda Baker, 39, of Bushnell, Fla., decided she didn’t want to sit on the couch and do nothing, so she took up handcycling. After her first race, the New York City Marathon, she said she was hooked.

“I lost my leg at 35 and suffered a brain injury and an incomplete spinal cord injury,” Baker said of the accident.

Her injury did not stop her, it made her want to show others what that they could accomplish, one step at a time. She said she thinks it inspires the runners, as well as others with disabilities, that if she can power a cycle with just her arms, they can run the 26.2 miles. Continue Reading »

Qualcomm event has seen death, paralysis

Tonight, top motorcycle riders from across the country will be leaping over and powering through a demanding obstacle course on the floor of Qualcomm Stadium.

But these are not daredevils. They are finely tuned athletes, the fastest of whom earn seven figures a season.

Yet Supercross is as dangerous as it is spectacular.

Most riders are broken or retired well before their 30th birthday. And some riders pay a much bigger price. Continue Reading »

Salem school friends soften a family’s ordeal Group rallies to help father of three paralyzed in fall

With the flip of a light switch, Cesar Mancebo — a strong, healthy husband and father of three — was paralyzed.

During an early morning blackout in November, Mancebo walked to the bathroom in his Fort Avenue home in Salem. Groping in the dark for the light switch, he tumbled down the stairs and smashed headfirst into the wall. The fall resulted in a spinal cord injury that paralyzed him from the shoulders down. He is still recuperating at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston.

His wife, Alexis, has barely left his side since — and the Salem community has banded together to find the Mancebos a handicapped-accesible apartment so Cesar can return home to his family. Continue Reading »

People are more than their wheelchair’; Speaker shares experiences with school classes

A group of Grade 8 boys gained a better understanding of life in a wheelchair through a presentation which complemented some of their in-class learning.

Stephanie Bolton, regional service co-ordinator for the Peterborough Canadian Paraplegic Association Ontario, spoke to 24 pupils at Highland Heights Public School Thursday about how people need to adapt their lives after a spinal cord injury.

“I call it getting into your groove,” she said. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

The association provides referrals, counselling and often acts as a go between for their clients and government agencies. Continue Reading »