Paralyzed boy won’t give up without a fight

Injured in a motocross accident, Joey Gibbs tackles new challenges.

Eleven-year-old Joey Gibbs knew he was paralyzed following a motocross jump mishap. The accident occurred at 5:42 p.m. on Sept. 18, 2008.

“I landed wrong, and it catapulted me into another jump,” Joey said, describing the double-jump accident. “I knew right off the bat I was paralyzed. I tried to move my feet. It felt weird. I felt tingling.” Continue Reading »

More on stem cell research

What are stem cells?

Stem cells have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body. Serving as a sort of repair system for the body, they can theoretically divide without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person or animal is alive.

When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the potential to either remain a stem cell or become another type of cell with a more specialized function, such as a muscle cell, a red blood cell or a brain cell. Continue Reading »

Art therapy: Marks’ exhibit showcases therapeutic power of art

Although Kenneth Martin is confined to a wheelchair because of a spinal cord injury, his imagination knows no limits.

The independent living coordinator of L.I.F.E. Inc., a local nonprofit organization dedicated to helping disabled adults lead independent and productive lives, Martin enjoys painting in his spare time and hopes to become a full-time working artist one day.

“I love the freedom to express certain concepts in a visual form,” he said. “I like expressing universal experiences that people of all cultures can relate to.” Continue Reading »

Assistant provides disabled man bridge to independent living

Ronald Griffin was meant to be a caregiver. Following in the steps of his mother and grandmother, he entered the industry straight out of high school. You can see his passion when he talks about his work. And his client, Michael Barnfield, says he sees it, too.

“Ron was created for this position,” Barnfield said. “He was born to do this.”

As a personal assistant, Griffin helps 26-year-old Barnfield with the day-to-day tasks that we often take for granted. Continue Reading »

Custom INGRESS’R® from Wikk Industries Helps Turn “ICORD” Spinal Cord Injury Research Centre’s Mission of Building “Country’s Most Accessible Building” Into Reality

Wikk’s highly specialized custom elevator activation switches are featured in The Blusson Spinal Cord Centre in the Vancouver General Hospital site – The ICORD’s (International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries) new home in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Greendale, WI (PRWEB) (PRWEB) December 19, 2008 — Wikk Industries, Inc., a Greendale, Wisconsin-based global designer and manufacturer of the AccessAbility™ automatic door activation solutions line, developed custom INGRESS’R® elevator cab and hall switches (http://www.wikk.com/sw_spec2.html) for all three elevators in the ICORD centre – an “interdisciplinary research centre for the development of effective strategies to provide functional recovery after spinal cord injury (SCI),” according to www.icord.org. Its mission is to give mobility and access control back – enhancing the quality of life – to people with SCI. Continue Reading »

Church helps injured teen on long road to recovery

Gabe Rodreick, who suffered a spinal injury in Costa Rica, hopes to get back to a top rehab center.

Gabe Rodreick of south Minneapolis was on an exchange trip to Costa Rica in July when he suffered a severe spinal cord injury during a scuba diving excursion.

Upon waking in the nearest hospital, the 16-year-old learned he was unable to move his hands and legs. Not too long afterward, Gabe’s determination to regain his strength and hopefully walk and play the piano again kicked in. It hasn’t let up since then, said his mother, Carolyn Rodreick. Continue Reading »

A spine-tingling new frontier

One Sydney scientist likens it to the lunar mission; a potentially great but risky step forward. For some people with spinal cord injury – 15,000 in Australia, increasing by one a day – there finally appears cautious hope that feeling or even movement in paralysed limbs might one day be restored, even if no one is quite prepared to say exactly if it will be in this generation of patients or the next.

American health authorities may soon approve the world’s first trials of a human embryonic stem cell-derived product for spinal cord injury, GRNOPC1, after the California pharmaceutical company Geron handed 22,500 pages to the US Food and Drug Administration to justify GRNOPC1′s testing in human patients, perhaps within two weeks of injury. Continue Reading »

InVivo nears human trials of spine-injury treatment

Spinal cord injury treatment maker InVivo Therapeutics Corp. has successfully wrapped up preliminary primate studies and is now looking to secure funds to go prime time.

During the summer, InVivo completed a primate and rodent study that demonstrated InVivo’s polymer-based technologies to be 100 percent effective, said Frank Reynolds, CEO of the Cambridge-based company. Continue Reading »

Collaboration Between Burnham And HeadNorth

HeadNorth Foundation has pledged $975,000 to Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) to support cutting-edge stem cell research. The funding, part of HeadNorth’s Chronic Spinal Cord Injury Project, will support efforts by Dr. Evan Snyder, Stem Cell Program Director at Burnham and Dr. Mark Tuszynski, Director, Center for Neural Repair at the University of California, San Diego, to use stem cells to treat chronic spinal cord injuries.

“One of the main hopes of the spinal cord injury community is that the future holds a cure for paralysis,” said Randal Schober, HeadNorth’s executive director. “We at HeadNorth believe that stem cells may hold the key to bringing that hope to fruition.” Continue Reading »

Crackdown urged on ‘rogue’ stem cell clinics

Treatment benefits exaggerated, risks underestimated, researchers warn

Stem cell clinics promising costly cures for everything from Parkinson’s disease to spinal cord injury grossly exaggerate the cells’ benefits and gravely underestimate the potential risks, warn researchers.

The clinics, most of them in China, India and Latin America, solicit customers over the Internet and typically charge about $21,500 for treatments that infuse “stem cells” into the blood, brain or spine. Continue Reading »