Spinal cord injury (SCI) has potentially devastating consequences. As of June 2006, over 253,000 people in the U.S. had structural or Functional issues related to spinal cord injuries. Evaluation of spinal implant devices requires testing systems that can replicate the complex motions and loads human joints commonly undergo. Continually improving equipment that can perform tests of strength, range-of-motion, and endurance contributes to breakthroughs in the treatment of SCI patients.
The Datum Spinal Joint Endurance Testing Machine – recently designed and built by Datum Industrial Design, Inc., North Bergen, New Jersey – evaluates how spinal joints will function in human bodies. The machine can be programmed for specific operating parameters so that it can test a variety of spinal joints in a range of scenarios. The machine demanded tight force or position control, but its loads did not justify hydraulics. Continue Reading »
Utah woman works hard daily to escape from wheelchair
Four years ago, Maggie Anderson’s spine was crushed when the minivan she was riding in hit black ice, flipped and landed on her.
Anderson will forever regret not strapping on a seat belt that day in Idaho. But at 21, she’s found joy in life, good friends and even a chance of escaping her wheelchair. Continue Reading »
Matt Hampson might well have been in Auckland this summer, playing for the England rugby team as they took on New Zealand. After all, many of his former team-mates were.
But Matt was instead at home in Rutland, confined to a wheelchair, paralysed from the neck down, unable to move any part of his body save for his head, his breathing dependent on a Ventilator.
The horrific accident that transformed Matt’s life happened nearly three years ago when, while training with his international colleagues in Northampton, the scrum collapsed and the former prop forward, who played for the Leicester Tigers and the England Under 21 side, suffered a dislocated neck and a trapped spinal cord.
A new pressure mapping system at Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital that helps clinicians determine the suitability of a wheelchair cushion is making life a little easier for people with spinal cord injuries, including Douglas Bartling Jr., 30, of Little Falls.
Bartling, who was paralyzed in a diving accident last summer while on vacation in the Adirondacks with his fiancée and his family, started to develop a Pressure Sore on his buttocks last March.
“I came in, and used the pressure mapping, and I got a different cushion,” said Bartling. “I went home, used the cushion for the weekend and it got better, and I haven’t had another problem since.” Continue Reading »
Chennai: Can you gain anything from someone whose job has not been determined? In sports, the guy who sits on the bench can only sit and watch the game, till he is called for. But, we are in the 21st century and medical science can do wonders, breaking barriers and age-old thinking. So even though a stem cell is a cell whose job is yet not determined, new-age companies are opening new vistas of treatment with them. Here’s the catch: every single cell in our bodies ‘stems’ from a stem cell. Like the Queen in chess, a stem cell can become a lot of things, when it gets the signal. So, here you have a part of your body which can become a skin cell, bone cell, red blood cell, nerve cell, skeletal muscle cell…thought not at the same time.
Stem cell company Stempeutics Research (backed by Manipal Education & Medical Group) is in the forefront of such innovation. Its sprightly President, Mr B. N. Manohar recently came down to Kasturi Buildings for a lunch-hour interaction and opened up a new world of therapy and possible cure for diseases, which conventional medicine cannot cure. Continue Reading »
Mornings are the worst time for Kevin Everett. That’s when the pain is at its most intense, when he’s reminded that things probably will never be the way they once were.
“I’m still faced with challenges,” he said. “I pray every day that things will get better. I’ve got to cope with ‘em the best way I can in everyday life.”
He knows he shouldn’t complain. Lord knows, it could have been so much worse. He thanks God every day that he can walk and talk and do the things thousands of others can’t. Therein lines the contradiction.
“I want people to know I’m blessed,” he said. “You’ve got to maintain your faith in the good times and the bad.” Continue Reading »
Central Nervous System may be retrained, report led by Physical Therapist shows
ALEXANDRIA, VA (June 4, 2008)—A new report shows that a non-ambulatory (unable to walk or stand) child with a Cervical spinal cord injury was able to restore basic walking function after intensive locomotor training. The case study, published in Physical Therapy (May 2008), the scientific journal of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), evaluated the effects of locomotor training in a 4 ½ year-old-boy, who had no ability to walk following a gunshot wound sixteen months earlier. Continue Reading »
Several University of Guelph leaders will be spending June 4 in wheelchairs to help raise awareness of the upcoming Wheels in Motion event and the challenges faced by people living with spinal cord injury and other physical disabilities.
President Alastair Summerlee, who is the honorary chair of the sixth annual Wheels in Motion being held June 8, has spent a day in a wheelchair for the past several years to draw attention to the event. This year, he will be joined by Joanne Shoveller, vice-president (alumni affairs and development); Brenda Whiteside, associate vice-president (student affairs); Mike Emes, dean of the College of Biological Science; and Robin Begin, director of Campus Community Police. Summerlee will also spend Wednesday, June 4, in a wheelchair. Continue Reading »
Editor’s note: Paralysis after a spinal cord injury brings wrenching decisions: Do you accept it as permanent and adapt, or do you refuse to resign yourself? John and Marci Pou took the latter course after his accident, embarking on an arduous quest for Rehabilitation, recounted in a three-part serial narrative. Part I tells how the couple chose to gamble on a different kind of therapy. First of three parts.
It was only a chair, but it had become his purgatory.
Each day that John Pou spent in the wheelchair, his spirit seemed to die a little more. It was a perpetual reminder of the calamity that had brought him and Marci, even the kids, to this place. Continue Reading »
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Utah woman works hard daily to escape from wheelchair
Matt Hampson might well have been in Auckland this summer, playing for the England rugby team as they took on New Zealand. After all, many of his former team-mates were.
A new pressure mapping system at Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital that helps clinicians determine the suitability of a wheelchair cushion is making life a little easier for people with spinal cord injuries, including Douglas Bartling Jr., 30, of Little Falls.
Mornings are the worst time for Kevin Everett. That’s when the pain is at its most intense, when he’s reminded that things probably will never be the way they once were.
Editor’s note: Paralysis after a spinal cord injury brings wrenching decisions: Do you accept it as permanent and adapt, or do you refuse to resign yourself? John and Marci Pou took the latter course after his accident, embarking on an arduous quest for Rehabilitation, recounted in a three-part serial narrative. Part I tells how the couple chose to gamble on a different kind of therapy. First of three parts.