Articles Tagged: Hope
Published: November 19, 2009 | Category:
News Until recently, scientists believed that, following a stroke, a patient had about six months to regain any lost function. After that, patients would be forced to compensate for the lost function by focusing on their remaining abilities. Although this belief has been refuted, a University of Missouri occupational therapy professor believes that the current health system is still not giving patients enough time to recover and underestimating what the human brain can do given the right conditions. Continue Reading »
Published: November 3, 2009 | Category:
News Spinal cord injury patients around the world may draw new hope for the future from the story of a paralyzed little dog who was able to walk again after receiving an experimental spinal cord treatment. Cambridge University scientists pioneered the new treatment that made it possible for Henry the dachshund to walk after he was paralyzed by a severe spinal cord injury. Continue Reading »
Published: October 1, 2009 | Category:
News LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Neuroscience researchers at the University of Louisville will be the only team collaborating with an international group of scientists who last week announced they had enabled paralyzed rats to walk while supporting their own weight.
Dr. Susan Harkema, UofL’s Owsley Brown Frazier Chair in Neurological Rehabilitation, rehabilitation director at the university’s Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center (KSCIRC) and the director of research at Frazier Rehab Institute, is evaluating how to translate into humans the success accomplished in the animals. Continue Reading »
Published: September 11, 2009 | Category:
News When Brent Adams overshot a jump on a dirt bike in December 2007, he ended up with severe injuries that left him paralyzed from the waist down.
“I went way too high and way too far,” Adams said. “It was a bad deal for sure.”
But with help from an Atlanta therapy program and fundraising by Central Florida friends, he has new hope for mobility. Continue Reading »
Published: August 10, 2009 | Category:
News AHMEDABAD: In what is seen as a boost to the stem cell research in the country, India would soon get to host human clinical trials for therapies using umbilical blood cord (UBC) stem cell.
Chennai-based Apollo Hospital, America’s largest stem cell company StemCyte and Dr Wise Young, a leading expert on spinal cord injury, are in talks for conducting clinical trials in India using stem cell derived from UBC. The companies may ink an agreement by the end of this year. Continue Reading »
Published: July 20, 2009 | Category:
News Support from the Bryon Riesch Paralysis Foundation will allow a Medical College of Wisconsin faculty member to research whether neurally modified cells derived from human bone marrow can be used to repair damage caused during spinal cord injury. If effective, this approach could someday be used to help paralysis patients regain movement.
Arshak A. Alexanian, Ph.D., V.M.D., associate professor of neurosurgery, is principal investigator for the one-year, $40,000 grant. He is studying the ability of cells that have been derived from human bone marrow and modified to behave as nerve cells to promote the functional recovery of injured spinal cords. His research is conducted at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center. Continue Reading »
Turning tragic events into opportunities for others
There are many flashing lights in our lives – when we see “green” we speed right on through life not even aware of what the next day or move could bring. As we cruise through the green light not realizing that sometimes others who have the red light do not halt and come to a standstill – they are in a hurry to “beat” the light and then our lives collide.
There are flashing yellow lights which warn – and instruct – they mean “caution” or “look out” – proceed with care. And then that ever nuisance, the red light, which makes us have to stop dead in our tracks when we want to be moving forward. Continue Reading »
Published: July 12, 2009 | Category:
News David Estrada lost the use of his legs, but not his will. Now, at Spaulding hospital, he and other paraplegics are learning to row, strengthening body and mind as they wait for a cure.
From his office in the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Andrew Taylor’s views sweep across the Charles River, where generations of rowers have raced. So maybe it makes sense that the pursuit of science would bring the researcher from his desk to the water’s edge, in what he recently described as “a beautiful convergence.’’
Taylor is amid a grand experiment. In his third-floor laboratory, he is replicating the workouts of avid oarsmen who pound away on indoor rowing machines inside boathouses along the river. But in Taylor’s lab, there’s a key difference: His rowers are paraplegics. Continue Reading »
Published: July 9, 2009 | Category:
News 
Susannah Breslin is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. She is a freelance journalist who blogs at Reverse Cowgirl and is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.
At Mayday Productions, blogger Sarah Scott writes about life with a spinal cord injury. Her writing is searingly honest, brutally revealing, and wickedly self-aware.
“The after is where it really gets grand, gets epic, gets to where one memoir could never be enough. Truly epic shit doesn’t start to go down until the very moment you decide to start living again, to start crawling your way back into the light and out of the darkness. Continue Reading »
Published: July 5, 2009 | Category:
News A 34 year old Bangladeshi electronic hardware engineer, resident in the Middle East, who is a paraplegic after tumor surgery, travelled to Bangkok in the hope of regaining some sensation and control.
In July 2006 M.H. aged 34 experienced an unpleasant burning sensation in both legs. He lost the ability to walk and rapidly lost bladder and bowel control. After investigations he was diagnosed as having an operable tumor on his spinal cord. Continue Reading »
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