October is National Disability Employment Awareness month

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Below is the official government explanation of what that is. The question is, what does that mean to you. If you’re not injured, maybe it’s, “Wow, that would be a hassle.”

If you are injured and unemployed (Household income for those who reported being paralyzed is heavily skewed towards lower income brackets and is significantly lower than household income for the country as a whole as reported by the U.S. Census — from our Paralysis Population survey.) Continue Reading »

Immune response to spinal cord injury may worsen damage

COLUMBUS, Ohio – After spinal cord injury, certain immune cells collect in the spinal fluid and release high levels of antibodies. What, if anything, those antibodies do there is unknown.

A new study by neuroscientists at The Ohio State University Medical Center may have solved the mystery. It found that the antibodies may actually worsen and extend the spinal cord damage. Continue Reading »

Research into restoring bladder control in people living with paralysis

How do you turn on (or off) a nerve cell that is no longer connected to the brain? You might try a molecular “light” switch. This new piece of technology is being used by investigators at Case Western Reserve University, led by Dr. Jerry Silver, to help restore breathing and bladder function following a spinal cord injury.

Following a spinal cord injury, “signals from the brain can no longer reach the relevant muscles. The idea is to make the neurons controlling those muscles light-sensitive; the cells could then be turned on or off with an implanted light source.” Continue Reading »

Light Switches to Help Restore Muscle Movement in Paralyzed

Molecular light switches are a fairly recent technological advancement that allows scientists to selectively activate cellular function using a light source, which in turn allows for more control when conducting biological experiments. The therapeutic potential of light switches is that they may be a good option to regulate muscles in paralyzed patients such as the diaphragm for breathing or the detrusor for bladder control.

Now LucCell, a new spinoff company of Case Western University, is actively working to commercialize molecular switches to meet clinical needs. Continue Reading »

Brent Adams: Therapy, friends give him hope of walking again

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 »

SCI Outcome: Environmental Factors Linked to Mortality

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 »

The paralysis buster: Jab and exercise combination could help sufferers regain the use of their hands

A jab that helps heal damaged spinal cords and eases paralysis is being developed by British scientists.

It is hoped that patients such as car crash victims could be given back the use of their hands, allowing them to eat and drink without help and even to return to work.

While the jab offers improvements that may seem small compared to the possibility of making the wheelchair-bound walk again, it could bring a huge benefits in terms of quality of life.

Scientists are developing an injection that will help heal damaged spinal cords and ease paralysis. Continue Reading »

Oldest Known Paralyzed Human Discovered

The remains of a man who could be the world’s oldest known paralysis victim have been unearthed by Australian bio-archaeologists in northern Vietnam.

Found at the Neolithic cemetery site of Man Bac, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Hanoi, the remains are between 3,500 and 4,000 years old and belong to an adult male who died around age 25.

Called Man Bac Burial 9, or simply M9, the young man suffered from paraplegia or possibly quadriplegia due to a rare disorder called Klippel-Feil Syndrome, a condition involving congenital fusion of the spine. Continue Reading »

‘You’ve got to keep going’

Jill Mason embodies challenges, successes of people living with spinal-cord injuries

One of the annoying things about life with two paralyzed legs is time, Jill Mason said.

It takes hours to get up, to shower, dress and fix something to eat, the daily routine that an able-bodied person — like the competitive triathlete Mason used to be — could accomplish in minutes.

In the five years since a drunken driver smashed into her bicycle on Highway 12 near Oakmont, severing her spinal cord, Mason, 31, has gotten faster at these mundane chores, but they still take an entire morning. Continue Reading »

Paralysis is a Catastrophic Injury

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 »