THE SPINAL POST

16 Year Old Hockey Player Paralyzed

2012-01-02T20:45:00.001-05:00

Well-wishers crowded into Jack Jablonski's hospital room and lit up his Facebook and CaringBridge pages all weekend as the high school sophomore and his family awaited a prognosis on a paralyzing injury he suffered during a hockey game on Friday.

"It's a parent's worst nightmare," his father, Mike Jablonski of Minneapolis, said on Sunday in the pediatric intensive care unit at Hennepin County Medical Center. "He dropped and didn't move. Right then and there I knew that my son, that there was something seriously wrong."

Known as "Jabby" to his friends, the 16-year-old honors student, hockey forward and varsity tennis player at Benilde-St. Margaret's scored the first goal of what would be a victory for the junior varsity Red Knights against Wayzata during the Holiday Hockey Classic tournament at the St. Louis Park Recreation Center.

Jack's team was up by one goal 5 minutes and 48 seconds into the second period when he made a dash for the puck near the end boards with two Wayzata players in hot pursuit, said Chris McGowan, the Red Knights' JV coach.

McGowan said two players rammed Jablonski from behind, smashing him into the boards, and he collapsed motionless to the ice.

Jack is in critical condition with two fractured bones in his lower neck. He's unable to move his legs and has only slight movement in his hands and fingers, McGowan said.

"He is a first-class kid. Definitely one of my favorite players in the program," he said. "It's team-first with him for everything. He's what I call a very high-end hockey player, too. And he's got an incredible hockey future ahead of him as well, assuming this all works out."

Doctors suspect that Jack suffered a bruised spinal cord and won't speculate about his recovery until the swelling reduces, his parents said. Once that happens, surgeons expect to fuse the two broken vertebrae, they added.

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Paralyzed Rutgers Player on Cover of Sports Illustrated

2011-12-24T16:54:00.000-05:00

Growing up as a kid, Eric LeGrand dreamed of seeing himself on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He could have never imagined it coming like this, however. LeGrand, the former Rutgers defensive tackle, collided with an Army player in October of 2010, suffering a spinal cord injury, two fractured vertebrae and paralysis. Doctors thought he’d be on a respirator the rest of his life.

Instead, LeGrand continues to amaze them. He’s been working in rehab and, on Oct. 29, was able to join his teammates on the field in a motorized wheelchair. That moment was named the best sports moment in 2011, an award that was voted on by fans, and a photo from that day graces the cover of Sports Illustrated this week.

Click to see interview with Eric LeGrand

Stud #1 Ranked High School Wrestler Paralyzed

2011-12-08T19:57:00.000-05:00

Stunned Alleghany County residents are rallying around their star wrestler, Luke Hampton, who suffered a severe spinal cord injury on Saturday while wrestling in a tournament at Hibriten High School in Lenoir.

Hampton, 17, one of the state's top-ranked wrestlers and a senior at Alleghany High School, has been at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center since Saturday, after breaking his C5 and C6 vertebrae, according to Derrick Calloway, Alleghany's wrestling coach.

"The way they broke, it severely damaged his spinal cord," Calloway said.

According to retrorankings.com, a website about wrestling, Hampton was the state's No. 1-ranked wrestler in Class 1-A at 182 pounds.

Calloway said Hampton charged his opponent early in the match on Saturday morning but lost his grip and went head-first into a padded wall.

"When I saw it, I thought maybe a concussion or he just hit his head," Calloway said. "Right when I got to him, I knew immediately it wasn't good."

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Wheelchair Access? There's an App for That

2011-11-11T12:35:00.000-05:00

An online service that provides transit directions in several cities is now giving New Yorkers an option to avoid stairs.

HopStop partnered with Fit Pregnancy magazine to identify stations and routes that have elevators and other features for wheelchairs and strollers. In some cases, that could mean taking buses and avoiding subways. Or it could mean getting off the subway a stop or two early.

HopStop offers transit directions in more than 50 cities, mostly in North America. Travelers enter their starting location and destination just as they do when seeking driving directions at Google and other sites. HopStop then offers the best ways to get there by public transportation.

The stairless option is currently available only in the New York area. HopStop plans to add other markets this year.

Get the App

New York Mayor Says Wheelchair Users Not Welcome

2011-10-24T20:41:00.000-04:00

Mayor Bloomberg says new handicapped-accessible taxis wouldn't just be inconvenient for able-bodied riders - they'd be downright hazardous to their health.

Bloomberg said the modified suspensions and larger interior spaces of disabled-friendly cabs would cause injuries and spur lawsuits against taxi owners.

"The suspension is a lot worse, and it's harder to get up and pay the cab driver and get in and out and that sort of thing," Hizzoner said during his weekly radio show on WOR.

"I think you're going to see [lawsuits] about people getting up, trying to get to the front, across the divide. You know, there's so much more space between the backseat and the divider, you're going to have people getting hurt," he said.

Bloomberg drew the ire of disability advocates Wednesday when he complained that accessible cabs would be uncomfortable and inconvenient for able-bodied riders.

He was pushing back against efforts by the U.S. attorney's office and other advocates to make cabs more accessible.

Champions for the handicapped ripped Bloomberg's remarks yesterday.

Assemblyman Micah Kellner, a Manhattan Democrat who was born with cerebral palsy, called them "preposterous."

"He seems to be floundering here, literally making things up as he goes along," Kellner said.

"Clearly, the mayor is living in his own world," Kellner added. "The Americans with Disabilities Act is very clear: Everybody gets service, and this is public transportation."

Gov. Cuomo has warned that the push by the feds to expand handicapped cab access could doom Bloomberg's livery cab bill, which would authorize 30,000 livery cars in upper Manhattan and in the other boroughs to pick up street hails.

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Eric LeGrand Continues Courageous Leaps Forward

2011-10-16T21:09:00.000-04:00

Wheelchair Video Game Available Free

2011-10-15T17:28:00.000-04:00

A Spanish company has created the first, that I know of, video game that puts the gamer in a wheelchair. Would this be fun? Maybe...

You can download a copy here and try it for free.

download

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Spinal Cord Injury Cure Takes Another Step Forward

2011-10-05T20:12:00.000-04:00

Scientists reported Wednesday that for the first time they used cloning techniques to coax human eggs to generate embryonic stem cells containing the genes of specific patients.

The step, published in the journal Nature, marks a long-sought, potentially pivotal advance toward the goal of creating genetically matched embryonic stem cells that could be used to treat many major diseases.

The scientists so far have only managed to produce genetically abnormal cells useful for research, but they were confident they could overcome that hurdle.

“This work for the first time demonstrates that the human egg has the ability to turn a specialized cell into a stem cell,” said Dieter Egli of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, who led the research.

The research sidestepped fears that scientists had moved closer to human cloning by producing the cells with non-viable embryos. But the experiments nevertheless have raised a new set of ethical concerns in a field already rife with ethical, moral and political quagmires.

The research was possible because for the first time scientists paid women for their eggs for human embryonic stem cell research, stirring worries about women being exploited and putting their health at risk. At the same time, the researchers made the cells by producing and then destroying mutant embryos, whose moral status immediately became a matter of sharp debate.

The researchers who conducted the work and others hailed the advance as an ethically defensible, potentially highly significant advance that could lead to producing large numbers of patient-specific cells that could cure widespread suffering.

“Cell replacement therapy would dramatically change treatment and potentially even cure debilitating disease and injuries that affect millions of people suffering from these diseases,” said Susan L. Solomon, who heads the foundation. “There really is a moral imperative to alleviate suffering.”

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Tragic and Captivating Story of Danny Cox

2011-09-24T13:46:00.002-04:00

Follow the story of Danny Cox as he chronicles his spinal cord injury starting from Day 1.

More here but watch all of the videos first: http://www.dannycox707.com

Bridge to Spinal Cord Injury Cure

2011-09-15T21:27:00.000-04:00

Scientists restored breathing function in mice by bridging a spinal cord injury and regenerating lost nerve connections to the diaphragm.

More testing is necessary, but researchers are hopeful their technique will quickly be used in clinical trials.

Restoring breathing is the a top priority for people with upper spinal cord injuries, researchers say. Many rely on ventilators to breathe, which can be inconvenient and potentially dangerous.

“We use an old technology peripheral nerve graft and a new technology enzyme to restore breathing to nearly normal,” says Jerry Silver, professor of neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University and senior author of a study published in Nature.

Using a graft from the sciatic nerve, surgeons have been able to restore function to damaged peripheral nerves in the arms or legs for 100 years. But, they’ve had little or no success in using a graft on the spinal cord.

Nearly 20 years ago, Silver found that after a spinal injury, a structural component of cartilage, called chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans, was present and involved in the scarring that prevents axons from regenerating and reconnecting.

Silver knew that the bacteria Proteus vulgaris produced an enzyme called Chondroitinase ABC, which could break down such structures. In previous testing, he found that the enzyme clips the inhibitory sugary branches of proteoglycans, essentially opening routes for nerves to grow through.

In the new study, the researchers bridged a spinal cord injury at the second cervical level using a section of peripheral nerve and injected Chondroitinase ABC.

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A Hero Remembered

2011-09-08T20:52:00.001-04:00

On Sept. 11, 2001, Mike and Evelyn Benfante of Verona got a call from their son, Michael, who was working in the World Trade Center. He said he was walking down a smokey stairwell, after “some kind of an explosion,” and was leading others down. Assisted by a colleague, he was also carrying a woman in a wheelchair, with 68 floors to go. After he hung up from his father, he pushed on as the firefighters were walking up toward the flames. While his family watched on television, both towers collapsed.

They finally and miraculously heard from their son, almost two hours later.“I saw horrible things that can’t be unseen or unremembered, but I also saw remarkable acts of helpfulness, selflessness, and generosity. That’s what I focus on to get through the memories,” explained Michael Benfante, Jr., almost 10 years after the attack.

The tragedy, escape and years of wrenching personal challenges are the subjects of Benfante’s new book, Reluctant Hero, A 9/11 Hero Speaks Out About That Unthinkable Day, What He’s Learned, How He’s Struggled and What No One Should Ever Forget, published by Skyhorse Publishing.Raised in Montclair, now living in Bloomfield with his wife, Joy, and their four-year old son, Benfante explained how impressed he was with the composure of those trying to escape through the stairwell. “People were watching out for each other, helping each other, being kind to one another, in spite of the worst attack on American soil taking place all around them,” Benfante added.

When he got to the 68th floor, Benfante left the stairwell to determine the situation when he noticed some women huddled in a group. As he called for them to get out of the building, they parted and there he saw a woman in a wheelchair. After offering to help her, she accepted but Benfante soon discovered her motorized wheelchair was too heavy to carry.

Call it karma, fate or a guardian angel, but nearby, Benfante noticed a lighter-weight evacuation wheelchair. After strapping her in, Benfante and his colleague John Cerqueira returned to the stairwell and started the descent through what was now a more crowded and hotter experience. A little more than 90 minutes later, after more doors and windows were blown in from the collapse of the south tower next door, Benfante, Cerqueira and Tina Hansen, the wheelchair-bound woman, exited the stairwell to a waiting ambulance outside.

Hansen started crying and motioned to Benfante to give her a hug. “I hugged her, gave her my business card and asked her to call me to see if I retrieved her motorized wheelchair,” Benfante continued. “That’s when I realized I was so focused on escaping that I never asked her name. When I turned around, the second tower began to collapse. We got out five minutes before the building came down.”

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Wheelchair Accessible Housing: How to Connect

2011-09-03T12:08:00.001-04:00

When their father died in May, Holly Smith and her two sisters thought his home in the Heritage Hunt active-adult community in Gainesville would sell quickly to someone looking for a wheelchair-accessible property.

George F. Smith Jr., a career Army officer, and his wife had bought the spacious new home — with its wide hallways and doorways and its one-level living — in 2005 because it backed onto a golf course and they both loved to play golf.But after he received a diagnosis of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 2009, the house was adapted for wheelchair use. The Department of Veterans Affairs paid for about $40,000 in changes, including a front ramp, alterations to the master bath and a lift on the rear deck, Holly Smith says. “The adaptations . . . made all the difference to his comfort. He might have had to go into a hospital or nursing home if the modifications had not been made.”

The house was listed at $589,000 this summer. But the family hasn’t had a single offer. They’ve struggled to connect with buyers who need the special features or who value them for possible future use.The ideal buyer, Holly Smith says, would need “a home with features like these, to save the expense and the waste of having these features removed if the new owners aren’t handicapped.”Smith and her Long & Foster agent, Amanda Scott, have concentrated on finding ways to connect with such buyers.

The experience has led Smith to wonder about the market for such homes: how others have sold and how people with disabilities find the right home. Smith, a London magazine editor, said she found just one Web site dedicated to the topic: www.barrierfreehome.com, run by a paralyzed veteran in Dallas.It appears to be the only site devoted to selling adapted houses nationally, according to real estate associations, accessible housing specialists and organizations for the disabled.

Jackie Simon, a Gaithersburg real estate agent who has built a reputation for linking interested buyers with accessible housing, finds houses and clients mostly through direct-mail advertising aimed at those in the accessible-housing field; local chapters of associations of disabled people, such as the National Multiple Sclerosis Society; and other interested groups, such as special-needs lawyers and occupational therapists.“Many times when I have the listing, I don’t have the client,” she says. “And when I have the client, I don’t have the listing.”

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Bionic Legs

2011-08-28T16:10:00.000-04:00

"1, 2, 3 stand," said John Greer's physical therapist.

It's providing hope.

"In over 20 years I never walk and for the first hour I got up and walking it's pretty incredible," said John Greer.

We met John and his wife Chris Greer last November.

They are paraplegics raising an able-bodied child in Dylan.

Both were involved in traffic accidents as young adults.

John is a Castle High School graduate. He was 19 when the truck he was riding in flipped.

Chris is from the United Kingdom and was on the back of a motorcycle when it crashed. She suffered a broken back. She was 20.

They haven't walked since, until now.

"I'm always optimistic so I would think that one day I would bust out of these braces I'd be running and somebody will say run Forest run!" said John.

Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific is one of the 10 leading rehab hospitals in the country. It has partnered with Berkeley Bionics to conduct trials on eLEGS Pro, a wearable, battery-powered exoskeleton that allows wheelchair users to stand and walk.

"Within these four walls we have really one of the best rehab center in the world," said Berkeley Bionics CEO, Eythor Bender.

John and Chris were the first to try it.

"To actually move and take steps, yeah indescribable and it's been a long time since I've done that and it's almost like being a baby again when you retrain yourself," said Chris. "You know to shift your weight and starting all over again but amazing, amazing feeling."

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Diving Injuries Increasing

2011-08-18T21:57:00.000-04:00

Lynne and Julian Lamoureux have been through a nightmare.

The parents of three from Dwight, Ont., spent the last month in Toronto by their son’s hospital bedside.

Bradon Lamoureux, 23, was swimming with friends on July 21 in the Lake-of-Bays area when he dove through a Hula Hoop headfirst into about a metre of shallow water. Bradon’s chin hit first and he severed his spinal cord and damaged his vertebrae from C3 to T1, leaving him a quadriplegic.

“We’re taking it day-by-day,” Lynne, 53, said. “He has a little bit of shoulder movement. We’re hoping to strengthen his diaphragm muscles so he can breathe on his own.”

Bradon is one of seven young people in their 20s and 30s who have been treated at St. Michael’s Hospital for diving-related spinal cord injuries since May.

Dr. Michael Cusimano, a neurosurgeon and director of St. Mike’s Injury Prevention Research Centre, said during the past decade there was only one diving-related spinal cord injury per year.

“For the nine years before this year we only had nine patients and for three years we had none. Now this summer we’ve had seven catastrophic spinal cord injuries, which have rendered young, healthy people quadriplegics and changed their lives drastically,” Cusimano said.

“It’s very tragic and alarming and our staff as well, have to deal with patients trying to get their lives back together again. Young people think they are invincible and it’s not going to happen to them,” Cusimano said.

Cusimano said the increase in diving-related spinal cord injuries could be related to the warm weather we’ve been enjoying, and unwise choices.

“Unfortunately, the vast majority of diving accidents are preventable. People need to know the risks and we need to raise awareness that this problem is happening,” Cusimano said.

“There’s a large number of people who underestimate the depth of water or are unfamiliar with the depth of water. People should jump in feet first or walk in and see that there’s no rocks or sharp objects and that the water is twice the height of a diver with a minimum of nine feet,” Cusimano said, adding alcohol and swimming also do not mix.

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Brave New Quad Begins Next Phase of Journey

2011-08-14T23:11:00.004-04:00

Find out more about Kasey Crute and how you can help: http://www.hope2kc.org/

Look Younger and Pee: Is Botox for Me?

2011-08-11T20:35:00.000-04:00

Urinary incontinence in spinal cord injury patients could be treated using Botox, new evidence suggests.

Allergen Inc has announced that the Irish Medicines Board supports the use of this treatment to treat urinary incontinence in spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis patients.

Many patients with these conditions have neurogenic detrusor overactivity, meaning their bladders contract during the filling stage, when they should be relaxed.

Injecting Botox into the bladder muscle causes the involuntary contractions to subside, increasing bladder activity and cutting urinary leaking incidents.

Douglas Ingram, chief executive officer of European Allergan, said: "For many people with spinal cord injury or multiple sclerosis, gaining effective control over their bladder and staying dry can be a significant step towards improving daily functioning and overall quality of life."

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Trading Places

2011-07-26T20:20:00.000-04:00

Standing room: Some buses missing half of seats
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Some Port Authority riders have been surprised to board buses this week and find all of the seats missing from the front.

The authority has modified 22 buses to serve next week's 31st National Veterans Wheelchair Games, which is holding ceremonies and events at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown, and venues on the North Shore and in Oakland, Fox Chapel, Jefferson Hills and Whitehall.

Spokesman Jim Ritchie said some of the buses have been needed to fill service in recent days because half of the fleet is going through semiannual inspections and bus shuttles have been needed during work on the Light Rail Transit system and closures of the Monongahela Incline.

The modified buses are being used for regular service only as a last resort, he said.

The wheelchair games are presented by the Paralyzed Veterans of America and Department of Veterans Affairs and hosted by the Keystone Paralyzed Veterans of America and VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. Nearly 600 athletes from 46 states, Puerto Rico and Great Britain will compete from Monday through Saturday.

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Disabled Can Do Any Occupation Given the Opportunity

2011-07-26T20:00:00.001-04:00

Wheelchair Guy Robs $70K from Bank

Police are searching for a gunman who robbed a bank in a wheelchair disguise.

Detectives say the man rolled into AmTrust Bank near Chandler Boulevard and 40th Street Tuesday morning.

The suspect demanded money from a teller at gunpoint.

The teller complied and he placed the cash it in what appeared to be a laptop bag.

The suspect got away with $70,000.

He was last seen getting out of the wheelchair and running away from the bank.

According to police, witnesses said he may have driven away in a newer model red Ford Taurus.

He was wearing a long-sleeved pinstripe shirt, a tan Fedora hat with a red and blue stripe, jeans and black boots.

The suspect is described as a Hispanic man, about 5' 7" to 5' 9" tall. He has a slim build, weighing about 180 pounds and in his late 20s to early 30s.

Surveillance images have not yet been released.

Anyone with information is asked to call the police or Silent Witness.

Gunman in Wheelchair Robs Phoenix Bank of $70K: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

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Lady Gaga Now in a Wheelchair

2011-07-14T20:08:00.000-04:00


Miley used a stripper pole for on sex appeal but Gaga uses a wheelchair

She has been criticised for her use of religious symbolism, slammed for some of her song lyrics and had animal rights groups up in arms over her meat dress.

But Lady Gaga might have pushed her critics over the edge last night after she came on stage in Australia in a wheelchair.

The able-bodied star has caused outrage among disability groups after she wheeled herself on in front of 1,000 people at the Sydney Town Hall.
Artistic or a wheely bad joke? Lady Gaga comes on stage in a wheelchair during her concert at the Sydney Town Hall in Australia last night

Artistic or a wheely bad joke? Lady Gaga comes on stage in a wheelchair during her concert at the Sydney Town Hall in Australia last night

Six songs into the ten song set, Gaga went off for a costume change and came on in a wheelchair wearing a PVC mermaid tail before launching into her single You And I.

But although her fans went crazy for the performance, it was met with disapproval from some disability organisations and advocacy groups.

In a statement to RadarOnline, Jesse Billauer, founder of the Life Rolls On Foundation, fumed: 'I haven’t seen Lady Gaga’s performance, but respect her artistic expression as an artist.
Outrage: But this was not the first time Gaga had used a wheelchair as a prop - and she wasn't the first star to do so either

Outrage: But this was not the first time Gaga had used a wheelchair as a prop - and she wasn't the first star to do so either

'Since this isn’t the first time she has used a wheelchair in her performances, I invite her to learn more about the 5.6 million Americans who live with paralysis.

'I extend a personal invitation to Lady Gaga to attend one of our Life Rolls On events where quadriplegics and paraplegics surf, skate, and snowboard, so she can see how much is possible beyond a wheelchair.

'Maybe that will be most shocking to her of all. They, like me, unfortunately, don’t use a wheelchair for shock value.'

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Breathing Restored in SCI Rats

2011-07-13T19:53:00.000-04:00

Neuroscientists reported on Wednesday they had made inroads against spinal injury by restoring breathing in lab rats whose key cervical nerves had been severed.

The technique has yet to be tested on humans, but if it works could ease one of the biggest problems for people with catastrophic damage to their spinal cord, they said.

Damage above the fourth cervical vertebra in the neck invariably interrupts breathing. The patient has to be put on a ventilator, and this carries a recurrent danger of respiratory infection.

Under normal circumstances, the rate and depth of breathing are controlled automatically by nerve cells in the brain stem.

To do this, these neurons in turn control specialised motor cells located from the third to the sixth cervical vertebrae.

These cells develop farther down into the so-called phrenic nerve, which causes the muscles of the diaphram to relax and contract and the lungs to fill and empty.

A team led by Jerry Silver, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio, report on an experimental way of bridging damage in the key cervical area.

They injured rats' spinal cords at the second cervical level to paralyse one-half of the diaphragm, and grafted in a tiny section of peripheral nerve from the rodents' limbs, attaching it both before and after the damage site.

The idea was to use the peripheral nerve as a bridge on which the precursor cells for the phrenic nerve could grow.

The technique had been tried before but was hampered by molecules which build up at the site of spinal cord injuries and inhibit regrowth of nerves.

To get around this, the researchers injected an enzyme called chondroitinase ABC at both ends of the graft to degrade the inhibitors and open up avenues in the scar tissue through which the nerves could -- hopefully -- grow.

After three months, tests showed that between 80 and 100 percent of breathing function had been restored, a performance that was maintained at the six-month mark.

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Tongue Piercing Aids Spinal Cord Injured

2011-06-11T18:19:00.000-04:00

CHICAGO — Martin Mireles says his mother was not happy with his tongue piercing: It didn’t fit his image as a former church youth leader.

But as Mr. Mireles told her, it was for research. Paralyzed from a spinal cord injury since he was shot in the neck almost two decades ago, he was recently fitted with a magnetic stud that allows him to steer his wheelchair with his tongue.

Now he is helping researchers at the Northwestern University School of Medicine here in a clinical trial of the technology, being financed with almost $1 million in federal stimulus funds.

Mr. Mireles, 37, tested the equipment one recent afternoon by guiding a wheelchair through an obstacle course lined with trash cans. Mouth closed, he shifted the magnet to travel forward and backward, left and right.

The study was one of about 200 projects selected from more than 20,000 applicants.

“There was a ‘wow’ factor here,” said Naomi Kleitman, a program director at the National Institutes of Health and an expert on spinal cord injury research. “This is kind of a cool idea. The question is: Will it work well enough not to just be cool, but to be practical too?”

A quarter-million Americans have severe spinal cord injuries, and experts estimate that there are about 10,000 new injuries each year. Millions more have some form of paralysis from an array of conditions, including stroke, multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy.

Wheelchair users do have several options now, including the “sip and puff” technology, used by the actor Christopher Reeve before his death in 2004, in which the chair is steered by breathing through a straw.

But Maysam Ghovanloo, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, wanted to create a technology that would be more aesthetically pleasing — without a straw obscuring the face — and more intuitive for users, with better control and greater flexibility.

After working on the tongue drive system for about five years, Dr. Ghovanloo is now conducting the clinical trials with Northwestern, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and the Shepherd Center in Atlanta.

To operate the system, the user wears a headset with sensors that pick up magnetic signals from the tongue ring. Moving the tongue to the mouth’s upper left corner, for instance, moves the wheelchair forward. (The researchers hope that in the future, touching each tooth could signal a different command, from turning on the television to answering the phone to opening a door.)

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Scores of wheelchair users washed away by tsunami

2011-06-04T14:48:00.000-04:00

Poor wheelchair access killed many

OTSUCHI, Iwate Pref. — At least one person in a wheelchair was washed away by the March 11 tsunami in the coastal town of Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, because the path to the designated evacuation shelter didn't have a ramp despite repeated requests by residents to create one.

Following the incident, the municipal government said it will overhaul its disaster prevention plan.

The shelter was a temple at the top of 40 steps. Tsui Takashimizu, 92, was washed away after she was stranded at the bottom of the steps, according to her son, Akio. He said the tsunami arrived too quickly for him to help his mother.

The tragedy highlights financial problems at cities with aging populations. Despite repeated requests in 2008 and last year for an alternative route to another designated evacuation shelter, the municipal government said it couldn't afford the project.

The area has many elderly wheelchair users. According to witnesses, several other elderly disabled people were also swept away near the temple as they waited to be carried up.

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Look Mom, No Stem Cells

2011-05-20T20:43:00.001-04:00

A new study is giving hope to millions who are paralyzed as the result of spinal cord injuries. The results of a new treatment challenge the conventional thinking that signals from the brain are needed for walking.

It might be a small step for 25-year-old Rob Summers, of Portland, Ore., but it's a giant leap for the five-and-a-half million people with spinal cord injuries.

Five years ago, "Early Show" co-anchor Chris Wragge reported, the elite athlete had dreams of becoming a major league baseball player, but was struck by a drunk driver while standing outside his home.

"The car then drove off, leaving me there with nothing and no help, no hope," Summers said.

Doctors told Summers he would never walk again. He was paralyzed from the chest down.

Summers said he was told, " 'You'll never take a step. Nothing."'

But his life changed after meeting Dr. Susan Harkema, of the University of Louisville. He became the first patient to take part in an experimental therapy for his type of paralysis.

Summers' injury disrupted the nerve pathway that normally triggers walking. Researchers implanted an electrical stimulator at the base of the spine that -- along with special exercises -- enabled his legs to move without input from the brain.

Having gone four years without any movement in his lower body, he was standing on his own in just three days -- a breakthrough that could change the future treatment of paralysis.

Summers said, "It was absolutely an incredible feeling."

Now, he can even take a few steps on a treadmill.

The results of the research have been published in the medical journal Lancet. The research was funded by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which was established after the late actor suffered his spinal cord injury.

The foundation's Susan Howley says, "These are early days, this is a first step, we have a very long way to go, but I think the implications are enormous. And I think Christopher Reeve would be very, very pleased."

And on "The Early Show," Rob Summers said he went into the therapy with "an open mind and a strong work ethic."

"I was optimistic from day one," he said.

Summers said when he regained some movement in his lower extremities it was "incredible."

"After not having moved anything for four years, and being able to stand, it was the best feeling I've ever had," he said.

Dr. Susan Harkema, who spearheaded the effort for the experimental therapy, said on "The Early Show" she was surprised how early Summers responded to the treatment.

She said, "It was gratifying to know that decades of research by many scientists had reached a point where it might help people with paralysis."

Harkema said Summers was a good candidate because he had no motor activity in his limbs.

She explained, "A lot of scientific decisions went into (our decision). ... We trained him intensely to make sure that there wasn't any possibility of recovery before we took this next step."

Since the therapy began, Summers said his life has changed.

He said, "Now I can stand. I've gotten my confidence back to just go out in the public, and be out in the world again. As well as I work on standing for one hour a day, as well as voluntary movement. I can move my toes, ankles, knees and hips, all on command. And that's just an amazing feeling to be able to get that back."

Summers said his next goal is to stand and walk "completely normal(ly)"

He said, "I'm working towards that every day."

Harkema said there's a long road ahead.

"There's technology that needs to be developed, and more research, and testing it in other people," she said. "But it just opened up a whole new set of opportunities."

Going mainstream with these therapies, Harkema said is the goal.

"That's what we're working towards," she said. "An important aspect is that there's knowledge we have now that can make incremental changes in people's lives. And so we need to start there, and then just continue to learn more about the circuitry and how we can take advantage of it to improve function and people's quality of life."

Wragge asked, "The doctor said you'll never take another step again. What did you tell him?"

"I said, 'I'm going to walk,'" Summers said.

Wragge said, "And you're doing it."

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Spinal Cord Injury Leads to Rugby

2011-05-18T21:18:00.000-04:00

There I was, flat on my back in intensive care at Harborview Medical Center with a 35-pound weight screwed to my skull keeping the pressure off of my two shattered vertebrae and severed spinal cord. Now what?

"Have you ever heard of Murderball?" The sweet-voiced, redheaded nurse asked me through a slight grin.

I was injured Memorial Day Weekend of 2007 while diving into Lake Chelan. A mound of sand under the water broke my fall and my C6 and C7 vertebrae, severing my spinal cord and leaving me paralyzed from the chest down and without the use of my fingers.

Fast forward through three years of rehabilitation and adjustments to my new life on wheels and there I was, strapped into a mass of metal and rubber, about to embark on an experience that would change my life forever.

Murderball, also known by the more marketable name of quad rugby, is a fast-paced, full-contact sport that is played by quadriplegics and others with various disabilities, the only requirement being significant impairment to at least three limbs.

It is a highly competitive, sometimes violent sport that is played in specialized reinforced wheelchairs that are built to take a serious beating - which they most definitely do.

Four players from each team pass a volleyball back and forth on a basketball court and score by crossing an 8-meter goal line at the opponent's end of the court. The defensive team tries to prevent the scoring at all costs; by ramming and hooking and, if they hit them right, even toppling opposing players.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. After 13 hours of surgery to stabilize my crushed spine, I spent four weeks in intensive care and eight more in inpatient trauma rehab. Three months after I rolled into the hospital on a stretcher, I rolled back out in a 600-pound power wheelchair.

The next two years were filled with rigorous physical therapy as I tried to regain enough strength in my arms to perform basic tasks needed for independence. At 22 years old, adjusting to my new life proved to be extremely difficult at times.

I never imagined that even the simplest tasks could be so challenging. The first time I put on my own pants was an exhausting cross between a wrestling match and a balancing act. Sometimes it was such a struggle that I debated the importance of wearing pants at all.

Once I decided pants were a necessity, I found out how hard it is to turn a doorknob when you can't move your fingers, or reach that ice tray in the back of the freezer. And I had never before noticed how many steps there are in the world.

More than a year after my hospital stay, I was finally able to trade in my power wheelchair for a much more manageable - and stylish - manual one. This gave me the freedom and self-confidence to resume some of my favorite activities, like sampling the beer at the local watering hole.

I got involved with quad rugby after a chance encounter with Jeremy Hannaford (who stole my handicap parking space at that very watering hole). He also suffered from a significant spinal cord injury and happened to be one of the captains of the Seattle Slam, Washington's only sanctioned quad rugby team.

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Paralyzed rugby player's brilliant surgeon: "90% is in your head"

2011-05-14T14:57:00.000-04:00

Taieri teenager Austen Haig remains positive, despite a serious spinal injury suffered in a club rugby match last month.

Haig (19) injured his spine while playing hooker for the Taieri Colts side at Peter Johnstone Park on April 16, and is now in Burwood Hospital, in Christchurch.

His prognosis is not clear yet, and his mother Helen says it could be six to eight weeks before the exact damage, and whether he can walk again, are known.

But good news had come over the past couple of days.

"Yesterday [Sunday] he managed to move his right foot, just wiggled it a bit. Then today they managed to get him out of bed and into a wheelchair for half an hour and that will be gradually increased this week," she said from Christchurch.

Haig, an accounting and chemistry student at the University of Otago, injured his back five minutes into the game, when he was hit at a breakdown.

An ambulance was called and Mrs Haig, who was not initially at the game, also came racing to see what had happened.

"It looked pretty awful. His body was lying there and his legs were all skewed off to the side."

Haig was taken to Dunedin Hospital where it was discovered he had dislocated his C6 vertebrae and his spinal cord had been crushed.

Through the use of weights on a halo brace, the dislocated vertebrae was put back in place at Dunedin Hospital. He was flown to Christchurch Hospital the next day, where his C5 and C6 vertebrae were fused together.

It would take another few weeks before the swelling of hids spinal cord came down, and there could be a clear prognosis.

"We're just at the waiting stage at the moment but the good thing is the spinal cord is still intact."

At the moment, he was a tetraplegic but Helen Haig said her son's attitude had been amazing and he kept everyone thinking positively.

"He mentioned to me how he is keeping everyone together. His attitude is just great, just thinking totally positive. There is none of that 'poor me' sort of stuff.

"He's telling me we can get through this. When he had the first operation the surgeon said that 90% of the recovery is in your head and he has remembered that."

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"Insurance" money runs out on quad

2011-05-14T14:29:00.000-04:00

ROBBINS, Ill. -- Rocky Clark sometimes dreams he's running track, racing around the oval as he once did, his heart pumping fast and his long legs a blur as he crossed the finish line.

Just thinking about it makes him smile.

Some nights, though, he has another recurring dream, this one pure fantasy. He sees himself in white shorts and track shoes, running again, then stopping, kneeling in prayer before a church door, somehow unable to make it inside.

When he awakens, Rocky Clark inhabits a world largely confined to four walls. Surrounding him are glass-encased autographed footballs and cherished memories of his glory days: Blue-and-gold ribbons. Trophies. And giant varsity letters from Eisenhower High School, his alma mater.

Clark can do little but swivel his head. He can't move his arms or legs. More than a decade ago, he was paralyzed from the neck down after being tackled in a high school football game. After nine months in rehab and a hospital bill approaching $1 million, he went home.

As a quadriplegic, his long-term prospects were slim. And over the years, there have been regular hospital stays and health scares – no surprise, considering Clark's fragile condition. He has just one working lung. His right lung is partially paralyzed; certain infections could kill him.

And yet Clark has endured. His doctor credits top-notch, round-the-clock home health care paid for by the school district's $5 million catastrophic health insurance policy. But that's run out, so the nurses and money are gone, replaced by his mother, growing financial pressures and a new sense of foreboding.

Rasul "Rocky" Clark beat the odds. And now he wonders if he's paying a price for his survival.

___

A week before his injury, Rocky Clark vowed to his mother that he'd strike it rich as an athlete one day and buy her a house.

Annette Clark remembers her son as an acrobatic kid who mastered back flips at age 7, ran too fast for a spanking and was always throwing balls and rocks – the inspiration of his nickname, bestowed upon him by an uncle. He took up track, football and baseball and excelled at all three, collecting ribbons, trophies and medals.

"I love awards," he now says. "It's a need thing."

On a warm September night in 2000 just four plays into the game, Clark – a high school junior and running back for Eisenhower's Cardinals – was grabbed by the shoulder and tackled. His head hit the ground. At first, he recalls, there was silence.

"When I started coming around, I heard a bunch of ringing," he says. "My whole body was vibrating, like a spring. I felt cold air. I tried to get up, but I couldn't."

Clark's neck had been broken in two places.

He spent about nine months at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, wondering if his injury was some sort of cruel payback for something he had done in his 16 years.

"I said to myself ... `Maybe there was something I said I shouldn't have said. Maybe there was something I did that I shouldn't have done,'" he recalls. "I didn't do anybody wrong. I didn't get in trouble. ... I prayed every day. I didn't go to church all the time ... but I was good."

"Then," he says, pausing for a breath, "I realized things happen. Life doesn't always give us what we expect. I've got a spinal-cord injury, but there's nothing wrong with my brain. I've got a strong spirit and courage. You've just got to learn to deal with it."

Clark finished high school, donning cap and gown and having a friend wheel him across the stage so he could accept his diploma. He took some college courses, but a full-time schedule proved too difficult. (He'd like to return, but can't afford it.) He became a volunteer coach at Eisenhower, attending games.

All of it was made possible by the care provided through the district's insurance policy. And Clark says when the $5 million policy ran out several months ago, he assumed it would be renewed.

But it was not.

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Pedal to the metal for spinal cord injury research

2011-05-01T01:30:00.000-04:00

A plan to funnel a $3 surcharge from every moving traffic violation — an estimated $11 million a year — to a spinal cord injury research fund cleared a key California Assembly hurdle Tuesday and could be approved by lawmakers by the end of summer.

Assembly Bill 190 — renewing the so-called Roman Reed law, named after a former Chabot College football player paralyzed during a tackle — was approved 4-3 by the Assembly’s public safety committee. It will go to the appropriations committee next month, then to the full Assembly and the Senate.

“This is by far the biggest step. It will be another two months for everything to play out,” said Reed, who runs the Roman Reed Foundation in Fremont. “We’re going to pass this.”

State legislators in 2000 agreed to fund spinal injury paralysis research through the state’s general fund and renewed the legislation in 2005. In all, the fund overseen by University of California, Irvine, has provided $14.6 million over 10 years to 120 projects.

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Cells go free - cure just around the corner

2011-04-29T20:56:00.000-04:00

A federal court has given the Obama administration the go-ahead to continue funding embryonic stem-cell research.

The controversial 2-1 decision Friday is a victory for supporters of federally funded testing for a range of diseases and illnesses.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia lifted an injunction imposed last year by a federal judge, who said all embryonic stem-cell research at the National Institutes of Health amounted to destruction of embryos, in violation of congressional spending laws.

Legislation passed in 1996 law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars in the creation or destruction of human embryos "for research purposes." Private money had been used to gather batches of the developing cells at U.S.-run labs. The current administration had broken with the Bush White House and issued rules in 2009 permitting those cells to be reproduced in controlled conditions and for work on them to move forward.

Obama officials have been at odds with many members of Congress over whether the the NIH research actually causes an embryo's destruction, as prohibited by the Dickey-Wicker Act.

Two scientists had brought a lawsuit to block further research. But the three-judge panel concluded in its 21-page ruling, "the plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail because Dickey-Wicker is ambiguous and the NIH seems reasonably to have concluded" the law does not ban research using embryonic stem cells.

The ruling does not deal with separate research on adult stem cells, which remains permissible under federal law. The plaintiffs have the option of now taking their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court for review. The issue at this stage deals only with the lifting of the injunction allowing funding to continue for embryonic stem-cell research. The larger constitutional issues are still being debated at the district court level.

The government had argued that an extensive list of research projects outlined by the National Institutes of Health would have to be shelved if the court had not acted and granted a stay.

The field of embryonic stem-cell research has been highly controversial, because in most cases the research process involves destroying the embryo, typically four or five days old, after removing stem cells. These cells are then blank and can become any cell in the body.

Embryonic stem-cell research differs from other kinds of stem-cell research, which don't require embryos.

Some scientists believe embryonic stem cells could help treat many diseases and disabilities because of their potential to develop into many different cell types in the body.

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Woman creates powered chair with lawnmower

2011-04-25T23:50:00.000-04:00

Wheelchair dude ruse, kicked off nude cruise

2011-04-18T23:12:00.001-04:00

A wheelchair-bound passenger who was debarked from a charter cruise in February on Celebrity Century after declining to hire a nurse has responded to a number of claims levied by the cruise line and charter company.

James Keskeny, 66, of Pinckney, Mich., has multiple sclerosis and is confined to a wheelchair. On Feb. 18, he was ordered off a Bare Necessities Tour & Travel nude charter cruise in Guadeloupe, where he had to pay $1,500 for travel arrangements home. Keskeny said he paid in excess of $4,000 for the cruise. The story was first reported by the Oakland Press, a Detroit area news outlet.

On Monday, Celebrity Cruises confirmed the details to Cruise Critic, saying in a statement that the debarkation was necessary because Keskeny needed help getting into and out of bed and using the bathroom (where he suffered a fall) — "special assistance above and beyond what is provided to our disabled or wheelchair-bound guests." Bare Necessities founder Nancy Teimann agreed that Keskeny's needs were extensive: "He needed help every time he had to get out of bed and go to the bathroom, every time he needed to take a bath."

On the third day of the cruise, Celebrity officials told Keskeny he would have to hire a private-duty nurse at his own expense if he wished to remain on the 10-night Southern Caribbean cruise. He declined and was debarked the next day.

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Now that you can see it do you still want it?

2011-04-18T22:23:00.000-04:00

The U.S. Supreme Court turned away an appeal by Chipotle Mexican Grill on Monday and left intact a federal appeals court ruling in San Francisco that said a nearly 4-foot barrier in a waiting line denied wheelchair users the right to see the food they were ordering.

The barrier "subjects disabled customers to a disadvantage that non-disabled customers do not suffer," the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July in a case from San Diego County. The ruling came on the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires businesses to treat disabled patrons equally and remove unnecessary obstacles.

Maurizio Antoninetti said in his lawsuit in 2005 that a 45-inch barrier at Chipotle restaurants in San Diego and Encinitas blocked his view of the counter, where customers can inspect each dish, choose their order and watch it being prepared.

Chipotle said it met wheelchair users' needs by bringing them spoonfuls of their preferred dish for inspection before ordering. But the appeals court said that doesn't match "the customer's personal participation in the selection and preparation of the food."

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First human stem cell guinea pig revealed

2011-04-09T14:25:00.000-04:00

In the six months since scientists announced they had infused a drug made from human embryonic stem cells into a partially paralyzed patient’s spine, the identity of the recipient has been shrouded in secrecy.

Recently, rumors began circulating in Internet chat rooms that details about the closely guarded experiment were finally about to be revealed.

Now, a 21-year-old Alabama nursing student who was paralyzed from the chest down in a car crash in September has come forward to identify himself as the volunteer.

“I was the first patient,” Timothy J. Atchison of Chatom, Ala., said in a telephone interview with The Washington Post on Wednesday evening. “I’m doing well.”

Atchison, known as T.J. to his family and friends, was a student at the University of South Alabama College of Nursing when his car crashed on Sept. 25, which, Atchison noted, was the birthday of Christopher Reeve, the actor who suffered a devastating spinal cord injury.

After undergoing emergency treatment at a regional medical center, Atchison was transferred to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, which specializes in spinal cord injuries, for rehabilitation. It was there that he agreed to let doctors inject him with the drug — more than 2 million cells made from stem cells into his spine, he said.

“I feel really good about everything,” Atchison said. “I’ve got a positive attitude. I’m trying to live life to the fullest right now.”

The experiment is the first carefully designed attempt to study an embryonic stem cell therapy. It is seen by supporters and opponents of embryonic stem cell research as potentially pivotal to the future of the research, which proponents say could revolutionize medicine and critics denounce as immoral.

The trial is primarily assessing safety, but doctors are also testing whether the cells restore sensation and movement.

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Stem cell therapy outsourced

2011-03-31T22:17:00.000-04:00

Deepak Singh, a 34-year-old businessman in Mumbai, India was shot, injuring his spinal cord and causing him to lose all sensation and movement in his lower body. Three years later, he saw a doctor who claimed to cure spinal cord injured patients with stem cell therapy. Singh proceeded with the treatment, but had no improvement. He later realized that he had been scammed and had been injected with an unidentified fluid labeled stem cells. For seven years he remained paralytic and bedridden. In late 2009, he opted to try stem cell therapy again (from a different doctor), having embryonic stem cells injected into his spinal cord. This time, he had improvement, which is quite astonishing given the seven years since his injury.

In 2010, the FDA authorized the Geron Corporation to begin embryonic stem cell trials for use on patients with spinal cord injuries. The study is centering on acute injuries, despite trials at different centers internationally that have shown positive results in chronic spinal cord injuries. Seven centers around the country will participate in the trial, including the Shepherd Center in Atlanta. Many scientists welcomed this milestone.

Prior to this, the FDA had not approved human trials with embryonic stem cells. The FDA has finally recognized the evidence supporting that stem cells hold promise and are safe enough to test in humans.

Dr. Dennis Lox, a Tampa Bay area physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist who also specializes in regenerative medicine, notes that he tried to get patients enrolled in the Shepherd study, but due to the long duration of the patients’ injuries, he was unsuccessful.

Dr. Lox has utilized stem cells and regenerative medicine techniques such as platelet-rich plasma to help patients with acute and chronic musculoskeletal injuries, using their own (autologous) stem cells for transplantation.

Dr. Lox heralds the initiation of U.S. stem cell trials in humans as the beginning of new era in which previously incurable disorders now have potential for cure.

Dr. Lox notes that researchers internationally are moving forward with numerous stem cell trials. For example, Italian researchers have shown that corneal burns, resulting in blindness, have been cured with stem cell therapy. Therefore, it seems only natural that spinal cord injuries also be studied and given a trial. Dr. Lox points out that if the stem cells are autologous (derived from the patient’s own tissues) there is little chance of any harm coming to the patient – a blind patient cannot become more blind, and likewise, if one is paralyzed, the hope of regaining use of their affected limbs is a very potent force in motivation to find cures for previously-thought incurable disorders.

Dr. Dennis Lox references the case of Rusty Leech, who sustained a spinal cord injury in 1998, leaving his lower body paralyzed. Leech traveled from the U.S. to India in early 2008 for embryonic stem cell therapy. Five months after the therapy, Leech was able to stand up without support and was able to ambulate with braces and a walker. He has since returned to India for additional stem cell therapy.

There had been numerous other instances of patient’s reporting improvement after stem cell therapy and it is time that independent larger scale clinical trials be implemented in spinal cord injury patients.

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Quadriplegic Doug Smith's new song

2011-03-26T00:38:00.000-04:00

A new song composed by Petersburg native and pianist Doug Smith, called “If I Could Fly,” will be heard by the public for the first time today.

The instrumental — produced, arranged and mixed by Alan Crossland, owner of Route 1, Acuff Studio — is heard within a music video that will precede every movie shown at the Science Spectrum’s Omni Theater, 2579 S. Loop 289.

That includes today’s much anticipated premiere of heralded documentary “Tornado Alley.”

Smith remains confined to a wheelchair.

That has not changed since being diagnosed as an incomplete quadriplegic after rolling his 2004 Toyota Tundra truck on rural FM 789 in the middle of the night on July 25, 2007, then hanging upside down in the truck cab for hours until being found.

Gaining use of even a few fingers demanded an excruciating amount of time, not to mention will power, but Smith said, “There was a point when I got so burned out on my physical therapy and the occupational therapy. What ended up bringing me back was my piano.

“Mentally, physically, spiritually, I credit the piano. There has to be some sort of paradox in the thing that almost cost me my life also ending up saving my life.

“When I wrecked my truck,” he explained, “I was a selfish person, chasing the music business dream.”

Smith first became excited about “If I Could Fly” in 2009, stating in an A-J interview then that parts of the composition “just give me feelings of flight.”

At the time, Smith said that he had rehabbed himself to the point where he “can play three-note changes fairly well, and four-or five-note changes awkwardly well.”

He noted this week that what has improved is his ability to compose. Even when he could not move a finger, said Smith, “New music kept coming to me. My brain never stopped working.

“My hands are not what they used to be. I’ll never be able to play ‘Passion’ or ‘West Texas’ again. But now I play in a different way. I’m able to at least get a melody out there, and then surround myself with great musicians.

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Human spinal cord injury cure w/ stem cells begins clinical trials

2011-03-20T15:17:00.000-04:00

StemCells, Inc. (Nasdaq:STEM) announced today the initiation of a Phase I/II clinical trial of its proprietary HuCNS-SC® human neural stem cells in chronic spinal cord injury. This trial is now open for enrollment, and will accrue patients with both complete and incomplete degrees of paralysis who are three to 12 months post-injury. The trial is being conducted in Switzerland at the Balgrist University Hospital, University of Zurich, a world leading medical center for spinal cord injury and rehabilitation, and is being led by Armin Curt, MD, Professor and Chairman, Spinal Cord Injury Center at the University of Zurich, and Medical Director of the Paraplegic Center at the Balgrist University Hospital.

Dr. Curt stated, "The launch of this trial is truly a landmark event for the field of spinal cord injury research. For patients facing a lifetime of paralysis, the prospect that neural stem cell transplantation may one day help restore some degree of function offers new hope. What is particularly exciting to me is the innovative design of this trial. Within the setting of one trial, we will progress from the most severely injured to less severely injured. In addition to our primary focus on assessing safety, the design of the trial will afford a very real near-term opportunity to observe possible benefits to the patient, which may include improved sensation, motor function, bowel or bladder function. I am extremely pleased to be involved in a study that is breaking barriers in the search for a treatment that could lead to improved quality of life for injured patients."

Stephen Huhn, MD, FACS, FAAP, Vice President and Head of the CNS Program at StemCells, Inc., added, "Dr. Curt is an internationally renowned expert in spinal cord injury, and we look forward to working with him and his team of experienced investigators at Balgrist. Our HuCNS-SC cells have shown significant promise in preclinical studies for restoring lost motor function, and we are excited to take this important first step toward our goal of developing a neural stem cell therapy that could offer similar benefits for patients living with paralysis. We plan to enroll the first cohort of patients with complete injury this year, and will then transition to patients with incomplete injuries early next year."

About the Trial

The trial is designed to assess both safety and preliminary efficacy. The trial will enroll 12 patients with thoracic (chest-level) spinal cord injury who have a neurological injury level of T2-T11, and will include both complete and incomplete injuries as classified by the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale. The first cohort will be patients classified as ASIA A, or patients who have what is considered to be a "complete" injury, or no movement or feeling below the level of the injury. The second cohort will progress to patients classified as ASIA B, or patients with some degree of feeling below the injury. The third cohort will consist of patients classified as ASIA C, or patients with some degree of movement below the injury. In addition to assessing safety, the trial will measure defined clinical endpoints, such as changes in sensation, motor, and bowel/bladder function. All patients will receive HuCNS-SC cells through direct transplantation into the spinal cord, and will be temporarily immunosuppressed. Following transplantation, the patients will be evaluated regularly over a 12-month period in order to monitor and evaluate the safety and tolerability of the HuCNS-SC cells, the surgery and the immunosuppression, and to measure any recovery of neurological function below the injury site. As the Company intends to follow the effects of this therapy long-term, a separate four-year observational study will be initiated at the conclusion of this trial. For information on patient enrollment, interested parties may contact the study nurse either by phone at +41 44 386 39 01, or by email at stemcells.pz@balgrist.ch.

Additional information about the Company's spinal cord injury program can be found on the StemCells, Inc. website at http://www.stemcellsinc.com/Therapeutic-Programs/Clinical-Trials.htm and at http://www.stemcellsinc.com/Therapeutic-Programs/Spinal-Cord-Injury.htm , including video interviews with Company executives and independent collaborators.

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Striving to walk while planning to live

2011-03-20T14:52:00.001-04:00

His tragic injury drew statewide attention when it happened last fall. The candlelight vigils and fundraisers that followed have subsided, but not Chris Norton's fight to return to his old life.

Steps: it is a relative term. One of many in the new life of Chris Norton. Chris says, "Sometimes it feels like if you try to go slow and easy it's really hard, once you kind of get in a rhythm, it feels really relaxed and easy."

Easy: that's another one. A term once simple to consider, and one that's not anymore. "I never knew how complicated walking was until now. All the different things that have to be in place..."

Healing a body from a spinal cord injury is much the same. It demands patience despite aggravation, strength from foreign limbs, and endless, minute, excruciating steps. He adds, "If I can just get my right, I wouldn't have to step over as much with my left. It would go a lot smoother."

Megan Gill, a Physical Therapist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota says, “That's the first question that even patients and their family ask, especially the neurosurgeon, after they come out of surgery is 'Am I ever going to walk again?' or 'Is my family member ever going to walk again?' so it's what a lot of people focus their whole rehab and their therapy goals on is the walking."

Walking unassisted is still a long way off. In the mean time, it's up to Norton, his family and his team of physical therapists to focus on progress. Again--it's relative, but it's real and here's an example:

Chris says, "It just feels awesome that you're making progress and everything is still going the right way. But then afterward, after I get on my elbows or do something new, I want to do the next step so it's always looking a step further."

"Rehab goes beyond just whether you can walk and whether you can get up and do the things that you normally did” Says Gill, “It's getting your life back and doing the things that you enjoy doing."

The new life in Rochester, Minnesota is rehabilitating Norton's parents, too. They've been here the whole time and have found some peace.

Chris’s Father, Terry Norton says, "This was a tragic injury, it was a tragic event, but we needed to prevent it from being a tragedy. To me, a tragedy is when nothing good comes out of it."

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We've got spirit, how bout you?

2011-03-10T18:48:00.001-05:00

Cheerleading most dangerous sport

Cheerleading was at the center of Laura Jackson’s life since she began shaking pom-poms for a pee-wee football team in the third grade.

At 14, she dreamed of cheering in high school and then, maybe college. But on the day of tryouts for the freshman high school squad in Livonia, Mich., those plans were shattered.

That afternoon, as her turn arrived, she got ready to perform a back tuck, a challenging gymnastics move she’d learned just for tryouts. She eyed her spotter, a girl just three years older than herself, and took a running start across the gymnasium floor before launching into the flip.

She still doesn’t know quite what went wrong, but she didn’t make it all the way around; she smacked her neck against the ground, skidding so hard that a piece of her blond ponytail ripped from her scalp.

No one in the room realized how grave her injury was.

Her older sister, Jenna Jackson, also a cheerleader, says she watched the cheer coach and other teachers try to figure out what to do as Laura gasped for air, her face turning blue as she mouthed over and over, “Can’t breathe.”

Laura had broken her top two vertebrae in her neck, and the crushed bones kept pinching her brain stem, which made her heart stop and start, stop and start. And while several people in the gymnasium that day knew CPR, no one knew that it was something Laura desperately needed in that moment. “They thought because my heart was beating, I was OK,” Laura recalls.

Instead, she’s now a quadriplegic, unable to move a muscle from the neck down.

Cheerleading — not basketball, not softball, not even field hockey or ice hockey — is by far the most dangerous sport for girls . Cheer accounts for 65 percent of all catastrophic injuries in girls’ high school athletics, shows a recent report by the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Earth shattering Christ's Church paralyzes five

2011-03-07T21:31:00.000-05:00

Five people have been left paralysed by the earthquake.

Back and spinal injuries have been the most common, says the ACC, which has received more than 280 injury claims for injured backs or spines.

Burwood Spinal Unit consultant Dr Raj Singhal said Christchurch Hospital saw three months of spinal injuries in one day.

Of five patients with spinal-cord injuries, four were paralysed and one had partial paralysis.

Another 18 to 20 people broke vertebrae, but nerves were not affected so they would walk again. Six or seven had to be operated on, while others were put in braces.

Singhal said one spinal-cord patient had spleen removed in a life-saving operation and had been transferred to intensive care in Wellington.

A woman had a "nasty fracture of the neck" and was transferred to Auckland with her daughter, who was also seriously injured.

The mother was able to move her arms and legs, which was "good news", Singhal said.

One patient was an incomplete tetraplegic and would probably walk again.

He said the injuries were suffered in several ways. One woman had a chimney fall on her, another had a crush injury and one was pulled from a collapsed building.

Spinal-cord patients would eventually return to Christchurch for three to six months of rehabilitation at Burwood's specialist unit, Singhal said.

Overall, Christchurch was lucky as the number of spinal-cord injuries could have been higher, he said.

An ACC spokeswoman said the corporation received 20 spinal-injury claims.

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Why do SCI have more infections?

2011-03-05T22:45:00.000-05:00

Mobility is a challenge for spinal cord injured patients. Infection is another. Adam Thrasher, assistant professor of health and human performance (HHP), says infection is the leading cause of death for people living with spinal cord injuries for two years or more. He and HHP colleague Richard Simpson are investigating why the immune system is blunted after a spinal cord injury.

"People who have sustained such an injury have much higher infection rates than the general population, particularly in the urinary tract, lungs and gastro-intestinal tract," Thrasher said. "They are very susceptible to pneumonia and furthermore, because their immune system is compromised, they have a hard time fighting these infections."

There are many theories as to why exercise helps an able-bodied person's immune system. The body may respond to exercise by releasing more antibodies and white blood cells, allowing them to find and fight illnesses before they become problematic, or the reduction in stress may assist the body in staving off illness. Though many theories exist for the able-bodied population, there are few for those with spinal cord injuries.

"It's a bit of a mystery because the injury is to the central nervous system," Thrasher said. "This is the part of the body that controls different muscles and organs. We know that there is paralysis; we know that there are limits to their mobility. But the immune system is one of the secondary complications. We don't know exactly why it happens. The immune system simply doesn't perform as well when the central nervous system is damaged."

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A promise to Superman

2011-02-27T21:10:00.000-05:00

Not many of us get to keep a promise to Superman, but a man visiting Auckland says he is on track.

When the star of Superman, Christopher Reeve, was paralysed from the neck down after falling off a horse in 1995, he challenged Dr Wise Young to find a cure that would make him walk again.

Young is leading clinical trials in China, the US, Norway and India that he believes will make this happen.

The cure will be too late for Reeve, who died in 2004, but Young asserts his research will bring hope to spinal injury sufferers who science previously wrote off as untreatable.

Young is the founding director of the W M Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience and a professor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

"It's achievable not just within our lifetime, but within a few years," said Young. "It's a matter of getting the therapies that are making rats walk into humans."

Young has injected stem cells from umbilical cord blood and lithium into patients' damaged spinal cords. He expects the cells to migrate into the injury site and form a bridge.

Lithium is used to stimulate growth.

Young said patients would not need to be completely healed to regain their function. Restoring 10 per cent of the spinal cord would be enough to transform their lives - and even make them walk again.

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Monkey is key to full life

2011-02-24T22:16:00.000-05:00

Wheelchair Access - There's an App for that?

2011-02-23T23:19:00.000-05:00

Raul Krauthausen, who has used a wheelchair since childhood, has always been uncomfortable with the services Germany provides for the physically handicapped, like special taxis and grocery delivery - saying they feel patronizing and further isolate him from the able-bodied world.

So Krauthausen took matters into his own hands and launched wheelmap.org, an iPhone application and website in German and English that allows users to share ratings and tips on how accessible shops, bars and other places are.

"Sometimes I feel I'm treated like a child who isn't allowed to decide specific things by myself," said the 30-year-old who suffers from a genetic disorder that makes his bones brittle. "I want to remain flexible and not be dependent on when a driving service has time to pick me up."

It turned out he wasn't the only one who felt that way. With some 300 new user-ratings daily, wheelmap.org now has details on 30,000 locations. Around 80 percent of tagged spots are in Germany, but site ratings for cities like London and New York are slowly growing, Krauthausen said.

"Wheelmap.org wants to help show people with mobility impairments everything that's achievable," he said.

Krauthausen attributes Wheelmap's success to its availability as an iPhone application and the "Wiki principle" - the idea that anyone, anywhere can contribute. Users rate locations without registering, but must log in to add specific comments.

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Cool new procedure might help next guy

2011-02-15T21:44:00.000-05:00

A relatively new treatment protocol is providing nearly miraculous results for some victims of spinal cord injuries, reports the Miami Herald. In the case of one 20-year-old gymnast from Florida, hypothermic treatment before surgery appears to have prevented profound paralysis and put him back on his feet just days after the accident.

The young gymnast, a state champion, was practicing for an audition with the Cirque de Soleil when a double flip went badly wrong. He missed and landed squarely on his head.

The young man sustained a bilateral dislocation of his spinal cord. When he arrived at the hospital, he was experiencing a near complete loss of sensation and motor control in his hands, arms and legs, according to doctors at the University of Miami medical school.

The prognosis wasn't good. With this type of injury, two of his vertebrae were dislocated and the spinal cord was being compressed by swelling. The spinal cord is a closed environment, so there is no room for swelling as there is in other injuries. Most patients won't walk again.

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Would that require rosemary or dill?

2011-02-07T21:15:00.001-05:00

A 16-year-old boy Upper Chichester athlete who suffered a bruised spine in a high school wrestling accident will remain in the temporary custody of the county office of Children and Youth Services and Jefferson Hospital, a county official said yesterday.

The case of Mazzerati Mitchell was the focus of a several-hours-long hearing before county Judge Mary Alice Brennan. All sides declined to comment after the hearing, but county Solicitor John McBlain finally confimed the youth, injured in an Upper Chichester High School wrestling practice, will remain in county custody.

McBlain indicated the boy's parents, Jack and Vermell Mitchell, have until Thursday to determine if they will allow the hospital to move ahead with surgery on his back injury. The parents, who are believers in herbal medicine, have resisted the efforts of doctors at Jefferson Hospital.

McBlain indicated neurosurgeons at Jefferson and elsewhere remain resolute in the need for the surgery. He indicted the hospital has consuled with six neurosurgeons and all agree with the need for surgery.

Mazzerati remains in stable condition.

McBlain indicated that a decision will be made by Thursday by the judge. He said that no hearing has yet been set, awaiting whether the

Mitchells present the judge with information about other potential remedies.

If in the interim an emergency were to develop affecting the boy’s treatment, then CYS has the authority to make the decision, McBlain said.

But he stressed that at this stage that is not an issue.

“If by Thursday morning no second contrary opinion is received, then a court decision will be made as to allowing the surgery,’’ said McBlain.

The Mitchells declined comment after conferring with their attorney.

Another hearing to determine custody likely will be held in the future, McBlain said.

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Quadriplegic Sets Typing World Record

2011-02-01T20:51:00.001-05:00

Seattle startup Swype has another Guinness World Record involving its text input technology.

A Texas man paralyzed by a hang-gliding accident used Swype with a special head-tracking device to set the record for fastest hands-free typing by someone paralyzed from the shoulders down.

Hank Torres, who was injured 30 years ago, used the setup on a Windows 7 PC.

He took 83.09 seconds to enter the standard Guinness phrase used for these record attempts, "The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human."

Torres is an engineer who uses Swype to write down his inventions, including several patented wheelchair products, according to Swype's press release today.

The record was announced Friday in Orlando, Fla., at the Assistive Technology Industry Association Conference. It follows a record for standard texting set last year by a Swype employee.

See the gripping video.

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Cancer leads to spinal cord injury cure

2011-01-28T22:17:00.001-05:00

In a study published today in Science, a global research team reports that the cancer drug Taxol® (Paclitaxel) promotes the regeneration of injured nerve cells in the central nervous system (CNS) after spinal cord injury. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Germany and the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s International Center for Spinal Cord Injury in Maryland, together with colleagues at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and University of Miami in Florida, found that the drug reduces the major obstacles to neural cell repair in the spinal cord of injured rats.

After a spinal cord injury a number of factors are known to halt the regeneration of nerve cells, including a poor capacity of neurons to grow and the development of scar tissue. Microtubules, small protein tubes which compose the cells' cytoskeleton, are jumbled in an injured CNS nerve cell, preventing the regrowth of cells. Concurrently, neural tissue is lost and a strong scar tissue develops, which creates a barrier for regeneration of the severed nerve cells.

Scientists found that Taxol® (Paclitaxel) has a dual role in spinal cord repair. It stabilizes the microtubule so that the injured nerve cells regain their ability to grow. Interestingly, the same drug prevents the production of inhibitory substances in the scar tissue. The scar tissue, though reduced, will still develop at the site of injury and carrying out its protective function; yet growing nerve cells are now better able to cross this barrier.

In this study, scientists supplied Taxol® (Paclitaxel) to the rats via a miniature pump at the injury site immediately after a partial spinal cord lesion. Within a few weeks the animals showed significant improvement in their movements. ]]

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Woman paralyzed by lover's hickey

2011-01-23T17:46:00.000-05:00

A 44 year old woman in New Zealand presented with partial paralysis at Auckland's Middlemore Hospital emergency department; after examination, the doctors concluded that she'd suffered a mild stroke caused by a hickey near a major artery in her neck. She recovered after being treated with anti-coagulant.

"Because of the physical trauma it had made a bit of bruising inside the vessel. There was a clot in the artery underneath where the hickey was."

Wu said the clot dislodged and traveled to the woman's heart, where it caused a minor stroke that led to the loss of movement.

"We looked around the medical literature and that example of having a love bite causing something like that hasn't been described before," he said.

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Wheelchair Users Get to See Fat Lady Sing

2011-01-16T14:10:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK — New York City's Metropolitan Opera has agreed to improve wheelchair access at its home at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The improvements are part of a settlement announced Thursday by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

The prosecutors had sued the Met, saying it had failed to meet standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The deal requires the Met to put in more wheelchair seating. The Met will renovate bathrooms and elevators to make them more accessible. It also must install Braille signs.

Met officials say they're "pleased that this has been resolved."

Each season the Met stages more than 200 opera performances in the city. More than 800,000 people attend.

Federal authorities have sued venues including Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden to bring them into compliance since the disabilities law was enacted in 1990.

Electric 3-Wheel Motorcycle with Wheelchair Dock

2011-01-14T23:05:00.003-05:00

A new electric three wheel motorcycle that allows easy access and driving from a wheelchair comes on to the market in March, 2011 . The bike is called the YDS 3-wheel EV with Wheelchair Mount.

YDS, a Japan-based automobile design firm, developed the wheelchair accessible electric drive vehicle.

The vehicle, known as the “Wheel Chair Vehicle (WCV), is wheelchair accessible from the rear and driven by operating a handle directly connected to the front wheel for steering and an accelerator located to the right of the handle with two brake levers located right and left to the handle. It sounds like you may need a good set of paws to handle the action.

The WCV measures 1,860 (L) x 1,000 (W) x 990mm (H) and weighs 68kg (including a battery). A DC brushless motor with a rated output of 0.58kW is embedded in the front wheel. The battery is an iron phosphate lithium-ion battery whose voltage, capacity and charging time are 48V, 10Ah and about four hours, respectively. The vehicle can be equipped with up to two batteries, and, in that case, it can travel about 50km (at a speed of 30km/h on a flat paved road).

A lever is used to lower and raise the rear end of the vehicle to allow wheelchair access and egress. Froward and reverse are controlled by a button on the right side of the handlebars while headlights and indicators are on the left side.

YDS plans to release the WCV in the spring of 2011 at a price of ¥500,000-600,000 (approx US$ 5,987-7,185).

NY Wheelchair Users Sue City Over Lack of Cabs

2011-01-14T22:33:00.001-05:00

A group of disability rights advocates today filed a federal class action lawsuit against the Taxi and Limousine Commission, asserting that the lack of wheelchair accessible taxicabs in New York City violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The lawsuit says that the commission's failure to require that taxis be accessible to the disabled is a violation of multiple civil rights laws. With only 231 of more than 13,000 New York City taxicabs accessible to people with disabilities, the complaint argues that the TLC ignores the needs of the disabled.

"Before I became disabled I was able to use taxis all the time, now I can't even get one to stop me for me," said plaintiff Chris Noel, who serves as co-chair of the Taxis for All Campaign. Noel works in marketing and says that using taxis is an essential aspect of what he does. "In marketing you need to be on time no matter what -- you need to be early, so cabs are the best way to get around. I still pay taxes, but now can't get a taxi."

The TLC says that while they consider accessibility a priority, the lawsuit is baseless.

"We have made tremendous strides over the years in improving transportation options for persons with disabilities, which we continue to prioritize," said TLC spokesman Allan J. Fromberg. "At the same time, no federal or local law requires that taxicabs be accessible to people with wheelchairs, and in fact, the ADA specifically exempts taxicabs from the requirement."

But attorneys with the group Disability Rights Advocates, who represent the plaintiffs say the commission is mistaken.

"The ADA exemption applies only to private entities not government entities like the TLC," said attorney Kara Werner. "The TLC regulates the vehicles and has a responsibility to ensure that all New Yorkers can use taxicabs."

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A Bud for the Bro

2011-01-12T22:42:00.001-05:00

Bro, this Bud’s for you
PAUL DOERKSEN
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011 5:54PM EST

I’m not at all sure I could survive being a patient in an intensive care unit for nine months, with no end in sight. That’s how long my brother Levi has been hospitalized, and he has been desperately near death for much of that time. As I write this, he remains in an isolation room in an Intermediate ICU.

Levi and I, now both firmly entrenched in middle age, are only a year and a half apart, right in the middle of a family of nine children. But we’re very different from each other. He’s always been kind of rough and tumble; I’m more bookish and reticent. I’m an avowed pacifist; Levi collects guns. He left school in Grade 8; I didn’t stop until I owned a terminal degree.

We weren’t exactly bosom buddies growing up, and drifted further apart as adults. So, while we live not 10 minutes from each other, we don’t see each other often – not nearly as much as brothers should. It’s not Levi’s fault – it’s been primarily mine.

When he was still a young man in his early 20s, he found himself a quadriplegic after a horrific road accident, and so his mobility is obviously limited, although he is fiercely independent insofar as he can be. Nonetheless, the blame for the paucity of contact has to be shouldered primarily by me.

To understate more than a little, life for someone who is quadriplegic is complicated by many things, and in my brother’s case, he has struggled with respiratory problems and the constant fear of pressure sores. Last February, Levi was admitted to hospital to have a deep infection on his elbow looked after.

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Party at the Nursing Home

2011-01-07T20:27:00.000-05:00

Adam Martin doesn't fit in here. No one else in this nursing home wears Air Jordans. No one else has stacks of music videos by 2Pac and Jay-Z. No one else is just 26.

It's no longer unusual to find a nursing home resident who is decades younger than his neighbor: About one in seven people now living in such facilities in the U.S. is under 65. But the growing phenomenon presents a host of challenges for nursing homes, while patients like Martin face staggering isolation.

"It's just a depressing place to live," Martin says. "I'm stuck here. You don't have no privacy at all. People die around you all the time. It starts to really get depressing because all you're seeing is negative, negative, negative."

The number of under-65 nursing home residents has risen about 22 percent in the past eight years to about 203,000, according to an analysis of statistics from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That number has climbed as mental health facilities close and medical advances keep people alive after they've suffered traumatic injuries. Still, the overall percentage of nursing home residents 30 and younger is less than 1 percent.

Martin was left a quadriplegic when he was accidentally shot in the neck last year by his stepbrother. He spent weeks hospitalized before being released to a different nursing home and eventually ended up in his current residence, the Sarasota Health and Rehabilitation Center. There are other residents who are well short of retirement age, but he is the youngest.

The yellow calendar on the wall of Martin's small end-of-the-hall room advertises activities such as arts and crafts. In the small common room down the hall, a worker draws a bingo ball and intones, "I-16. I-one-six." As Martin maneuvers his motorized wheelchair through the hallway, most of those he passes have white hair and wrinkled skin.

"It's lonely here," Martin says, as a single tear drips from his right eye.

Martin exchanges muted hellos with older residents as he travels down the hall to smoke outside. His entire daily routine, from showering to eating to enjoying a cigarette, is dictated by the schedules of those on whom he relies for help.

He usually wakes up late, then waits for an aide to shower him, dress him and return him to his wheelchair. He watches TV, goes to therapy five days a week and waits most days for his friend to bring him meals.

He mostly keeps to himself, engaging in infrequent and superficial conversations with his elders.

Martin's parents are unable to care for him at home. His father is a truck driver who is constantly on the road, and his stepmother is sick with lupus. Medicaid pays his bills; it could take a lawsuit for him to get care outside a nursing home.

Advocates who help young patients find alternatives to nursing homes say people are often surprised to learn there are so many in the facilities. About 15 percent of nursing home residents are under 65.

"When I tell people I try to get kids out of nursing homes, they have no idea," says Katie Chandler, a social worker for the nonprofit Georgia Advocacy Office.

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Believe in Walking is Nice, but...

2011-01-07T20:08:00.000-05:00

Eric LeGrand Rutgers Football Player - Spinal Cord Injury - 1st Interview

Shocking SCI News

2011-01-04T21:27:00.000-05:00

Department of Urology, Adelaide and Meath Hospital, Tallaght, Ireland.

To examine the success rate of electroejaculatory stimulation in patients with acquired spinal injuries in a single Irish institution. The use of electroejaculatory stimulation is of benefit in patients with spinal cord injury who wish to have children.

A retrospective review of the Hospital In-Patient Enquiry scheme database and the patients' medical notes was performed. Any patient who had undergone electroejaculatory stimulation in the past 14 years was included. The quality of semen obtained and the pregnancy rate were assessed in relation to several variables, including patient age and level of spinal injury.

From 1994 to 2008, 31 patients (29 patients with acquired spinal injury and 2 patients with a congenital spinal abnormality) had undergone electroejaculatory stimulation as a method of providing semen for assisted conception. Of the 31 patients, 6 had requested cryopreservation of their semen for future use and were therefore excluded from the pregnancy rate analysis. Of the 25 patients who had used the semen, 9 (36%) were successful in achieving pregnancy that resulted in living offspring. The semen analysis results were available for 15 patients. Three patients (one each with contaminated semen, poor semen quality, and an abandoned procedure) required testicular biopsy to extract viable sperm and subsequently achieved pregnancy. Lower spinal lesions (below T10) were associated with lower rates of pregnancy after electroejaculatory stimulation. One patient developed autonomic dysreflexia during the procedure, which was therefore abandoned.

Electroejaculatory stimulation is an effective method of obtaining semen for reproductive purposes and is an option for fertility preservation in patients with spinal cord injury-related anejaculation.

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Quadriplegic's Home Pillaged

2010-12-26T13:04:00.000-05:00

Spinal Cord Injuries Increasing

2010-12-15T22:48:00.000-05:00

More than 80,000 Canadians are living with spinal cord injuries and that number is expected to climb.

A new report commissioned by the Rick Hansen Institute marks the first time Canadian health officials have had access to solid numbers on spinal cord injuries, which significantly shorten people's lives and cost billions in health-care costs.

The Urban Futures Institute report estimates 85,556 Canadians have spinal cord injuries. That number is expected to reach 121,000 by 2030.

About 48,243 people with spinal cord injuries are fully paralyzed, while 30,324 can use their arms.

People with spinal cord injuries will spend an average 140 days in hospital and die 15 to 30 years earlier than the average person. That's because they're susceptible to medical complications like urinary tract infections, pressure ulcers, pneumonia and severe depression.

Christopher Reeve, the actor known for portraying Superman who became paralyzed after falling from a horse, eventually succumbed to complications due to pressure ulcers.

In 42% of cases, the cause is a traumatic injury like Reeve's — mostly car crashes and falls. Other common causes include ALS and cancer.

The report estimates the economic cost of traumatic spinal cord injuries is $3.6 billion a year, including $1.8 billion in direct medical costs.

“It is essential to demonstrate to the Canadian public the full cost of SCI, to both individuals and communities, and to demonstrate the benefits of programs that will either reduce incidence or improve the lives of those with SCI so that the wider public will give their support, both in spirit and in funding, of these programs,” the report says.

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ReWalk - Bionic Legs Seen on GLEE December 7, 2010

2010-12-08T19:03:00.000-05:00

All Terrain Wheelchair

2010-12-05T23:18:00.000-05:00

Bridesmaid Breaks Neck of Bride

2010-11-22T23:48:00.001-05:00

A few weeks before her wedding day, Rachelle Friedman went out for her bachelorette party with some close friends last May. After a night out on the town, the group went to the home of Rachelle's best friend.

The friend playfully pushed Rachelle into the swimming pool — something they'd done to each other many times before — but this time the bride-to-be landed on her head, paralyzing her from her chest down.

In the ensuing six months, Rachelle has worked to adjust to her new reality. Despite the odds and the tragic turn her life has taken, she is "doing awesome," Friedman says in a Monday interview with the "Today" show. She credits her family and her fiancé, Chris Chapman — who says in the segment that the wedding is still on: "I never once thought about leaving her or this situation." As for the friend, whose name Rachelle wants to keep from the press, Rachelle says, "I'm absolutely best friends with the girl…. Blaming her would be ridiculous."

Watch the "Today" show interview with Rachelle Friedman and Chris Chapman:

In a recent interview with ABC News, Friedman recalled more of the accident. "I instantly went stiff and couldn't move," she said. "I weirdly did not panic. I kind of knew exactly what happened, and I floated up to the surface and said, 'Help,' and then my friends called 911."

ABC reports that the doctors at the hospital "quickly determined that Friedman had suffered a C6 spinal cord injury, leaving her unable to walk or even feel sensation beneath her collarbone." Friedman spent nearly three months in the hospital before beginning rehab. It was then, according to ABC, that she learned just how difficult things were going to be.

Jackass Quad Walks After Stem Cell Treatment

2010-11-21T16:21:00.000-05:00

Eli the donkey’s recovery from incomplete quadriplegia could be the most important breakthrough in traumatic spinal-cord injuries and for the stem-cell treatment that restored his mobility—a breakthrough that could impact not only equids but all mammals, including humans.

Quadriplegia is considered incomplete if there is lack of mobility yet some sensory or motor function below the affected area.

On May 13, little Eli was inexplicably savaged by his longtime companion Watson, a jack nearly twice his size. During the attack, Watson grabbed Eli by the neck and shook him furiously like a rag doll, which caused severe spinal-cord trauma midway down his cervical spine.

Over the next few days, as Eli’s spinal cord swelled from the trauma, he experienced a rapid progression of weakness in his front end and hindquarters. With Eli’s condition quickly deteriorating, attending veterinarian Steve Goss, D.V.M., recommended that Eli be sent about 30 miles away to Alamo Pintado Equine Medical Center in Los Olivos, California, for specialized treatment. Alamo Pintado’s staff is credited with overcoming nearly insurmountable odds to save the lives of major stakes winners Thorn Song and most recently Global Hunter (Arg).

Eli arrived at Alamo Pintado on May 18, weak and unstable on all four legs.

“We did a normal treatment of [dimethyl sulfoxide], anti-inflammatories, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy, but he was deteriorating very fast right in front of us,” said Doug Herthel, D.V.M., Alamo Pintado’s founder and chief of staff. “So on May 22, Dr. Carter Judy did an MRI, and that gave us the definitive diagnosis.”

Eli suffered severe trauma to the spinal cord and its blood supply, and the resultant swelling caused compression of the cord within the spinal canal. The diagnosis was delivered by veterinary radiologist Travis Saveraid, D.V.M.

Herthel also sought the opinion of Mike Kistler, M.D., in Cortez, Colorado, a senior member of the American Society of Neuroradiology with more than 25 years of experience in human spinal trauma. Kistler also is a horseman who considered a career in veterinary medicine before turning to human neuroradiology.

“In a human, a comparable injury would have been sustained by diving into shallow water, and the majority of those injuries would have a poor prognosis, with paralysis,” Kistler said.

Kistler’s interpretation of the MRI results was that Eli’s spinal cord had suffered significant bruising and circulation damage, and that the prognosis was poor. Kistler speculated that it would be unlikely that Eli’s injury would resolve on its own, even with traditional treatment. Moreover, because an equid’s overall health declines when it cannot stand, he felt Eli most likely would not survive his injury or its complications.

Under the supervision of internal medicine specialist Tania Kozikowski, D.V.M., Eli received intense supportive care, treatment with anti-inflammatories to reduce the swelling in his spinal cord, and 24-hour-a-day nursing. Yet his condition continued to decline rapidly. On May 24, he lay paralyzed in all four limbs and could not lift his head, urinate, or defecate. He had developed pneumonia and was unable to maintain his body temperature, even with supportive care. Eli was on the verge of death.

Untried theory

Herthel is a pioneer in stem-cell therapy. Over the past 15 years, he has treated more than 5,000 horses with good results. But the bulk of these cases have been tendon and ligament injuries, and more recently laminitis and arthritis. He knew of no research to support the use of stem-cell therapy as a treatment for spinal-cord injuries. But, in theory, it made a lot of sense to him.

“The option to use stem cells was based on what we know adult stem cells can do—promote angiogenesis [formation of new blood vessels] and anti-inflammatory action,” Herthel said. “These injuries to the spinal cord created a lack of circulation and blood supply, which would cause cell death. Eventually, you just end up with a sac of fluid where the injured spinal cord used to be. So our goal was to get rid of the inflammation, similar to what we would use corticosteroids for. But more important were the angiogenesis properties of the mesenchymal stem cells and their ability to protect the cells in the spinal cord and promote the growth of new cells. They also inhibit the formation of scar tissue.”

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Proven Therapy But Insurance Will Not Cover

2010-11-14T15:42:00.000-05:00

Families of two paralyzed Bay State teens are calling on insurance companies to step up and fund the life-altering therapy that they say has given their sons new hope, but is painfully out of grasp for so many other families.

“It is a shame that insurance doesn’t cover it,” said Michael Brown, who uses donations from the community to pay the $100-an-hour bill for his son, paralyzed Norwood hockey player Matt Brown, to get therapy at Journey Forward, a Canton rehabilitation center.

Brown is among 37 spinal-cord injury patients who are making strides at the nonprofit center founded in 2008 by Dan Cummings, a quadriplegic who was paralyzed in 2000 and told he’d never walk again.

“What we do at Journey Forward is we think outside the box,” said Cummings, 29, who gets around with a walker and says exercise-based therapy has made that possible. “We get paralyzed clients on spin bikes, on total gyms, on treadmills.”

Cummings operates on the belief that with repetitive exercise the neuropathways that are broken in a spinal-cord injury can be retrained, forging connections again between the brain and the spinal cord.

Brown, 16, the high school hockey player who suffered two fractured vertebrae in a game last January, leaving him a quadriplegic, is wiggling his toes now thanks to his work at Journey Forward, he said.

“I’ve got three of them to really go,” he said of the toes on his right foot.

Insurance companies say they don’t cover Journey Forward because their therapies are unproven and their specialists are not licensed physical therapists, but families of patients say that view is shortsighted.

“To put up a barrier to anybody who has suffered a spinal-cord injury or is in a wheelchair and is looking to get out, to put out a financial barrier because insurance doesn’t see it as traditional is just crazy,” said Michael Brown. “There are many of these clients who don’t want to learn how to live in a wheelchair. They want to learn how to get out of that chair.”

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Wheelchair Dude Takes Down Bad Guy

2010-11-11T19:25:00.001-05:00

Larry Skopnik pulls a Lenny Skutnik

A wheelchair-bound Vancouver man has been hailed as a local hero after CCTV footage of him helping to thwart a convenience story robbery made its way online, ABC is reporting.

Larry Skopnik, a paraplegic who broke his back a decade ago in an ATV accident, was shopping at a Food Stop franchise in Vancouver when a customer attempted to purchase tobacco with a counterfeit $50 bill. The Vancouver Sun reports that as the shopkeeper refused to take the bill, the man became angry and threatened to rob the store.

As seen in the footage, the man attempts to charge behind the counter, but Skopnik quickly rolls over and puts the man into a headlock before wrestling him to the floor. And while his brave act has generated international headlines, Skopnik shrugs off the attention.

"People have a perception about people in wheelchairs as being unable, when we're 99 percent able," Skopnik is quoted by AOL as saying. "There are only four things I can't do in life, and that's walk, run, jump and kick. Everything else, I'm totally able to do, and helping other people is one of them."

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A Freak Accident?

2010-10-18T21:53:00.000-04:00

Rutgers tackle Eric LeGrand suffers spinal cord injury, has no movement below neck

Rutgers defensive tackle Eric LeGrand has no movement below the neck after suffering a spinal-cord injury during the Scarlet Knights' overtime victory over Army on Saturday at New Meadowlands Stadium.

LeGrand, who was hurt on a kickoff, was injured at the C3-C4 level of his spine and underwent surgery to stabilize the area. He is hospitalized in the intensive-care unit of Hackensack University Medical Center and is expected to remain there for a while, according to a statement released by the school's athletic department.

"We want to say thank you to everyone for all of your prayers, kind words, and well wishes," LeGrand's family said in a statement. "We appreciate every single thought. Eric is in good spirits and we are praying for a full recovery."

Rutgers defensive tackle Eric LeGrand carted off on backboard with neck injury

Rutgers players react to Eric Legrand's spinal injury

First Human SCI Stem Cell Trials Set To Begin

2010-10-11T14:24:00.001-04:00

U.S. doctors have begun treating the first patient to receive human embryonic stem cells, but details of the landmark clinical trial are being kept confidential, Geron Corp said on Monday.

Geron has the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration license to use the controversial cells to treat people, in this case patients with new spinal cord injuries. It is the first publicly known use of human embryonic stem cells in people.

"The patient was enrolled at Shepherd Center, a 132-bed spinal cord and brain injury rehabilitation hospital and clinical research center in Atlanta, Georgia," Geron said in a statement.

"Shepherd Center is one of seven potential sites in the United States that may enroll patients in the clinical trial."

Northwestern University in Chicago is also ready to enroll patients.

Geron's stem cells come from human embryos left over from fertility treatments. They have been manipulated so that they have become precursors to certain types of nerve cells.

The hope is that they will travel to the site of a recent spinal cord injury and release compounds that will help the damaged nerves in the cord regenerate.

The Phase I trial will not be aiming to cure patients but to establish that the cells are safe to use. Under the guidelines of the trial, the patients must have very recent injuries.

Geron said the Shepherd Center would keep details of the patient confidential.

"When we started working with human embryonic stem cells in 1999, many predicted that it would be a number of decades before a cell therapy would be approved for human clinical trials," Geron President and CEO Dr. Thomas Okarma said in a statement.

Geron is not subject to limitations on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, as it has done all its work with its own funding.

The government is embroiled in a legal battle over the cells. Just weeks after he took office in 2009, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that eased limitations on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

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Dad/Coach Not Allowed to Coach from Wheelchair

2010-10-09T13:46:00.000-04:00

It didn’t take high-dollar lawyers — though they offered — to resolve a dispute between a youth football club and a coach with a disability.

Ultimately it boiled down to an apology and an agreement forged during a face-to-face meeting on Friday.

The Football and Cheerleading Club of Johnson County apologized to assistant coach Merrill Staton, who was told that his motorized wheelchair posed a safety hazard for players. The club agreed to drop a rule that required the coach to have an adult work alongside him at all times during games.

“The remainder of the coaching staff will increase their already heightened awareness of players on the field that may need additional protection due to a play extending out of bounds and possibly coming in contact with Mr. Staton’s wheelchair,” the club said in a statement.

Club leaders said that the heightened awareness will address their safety concerns.

“The club has apologized to Mr. Staton and recognizes that poor communications from members of the club with him were the source of a misunderstanding of the issues,” the club said.

Staton learned about the rule on Sunday just as his second-grade son was set to hit the field. He had planned to appeal the decision.

As word of the story traveled, parents, members of the disability community and others offered to join him at his appeal. The story gained national attention and caused disability advocates to take note.

“I have had at least 20 attorneys offer me pro bono services,” Staton said.

But the Overland Park man has stressed from the beginning that he didn’t want a monetary windfall. Staton, who has a progressive neurological disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, simply wanted the chance to coach his boys, ages 7 and 5, while he’s healthy enough to do it.

On Friday, Staton said he’s satisfied with the agreement and can’t wait for the weekend games.

“It’s going to be a big deal,” he said. “I left last week because of the whole ordeal. We lost the game, and from my understanding it was a pretty somber game.”

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Did He Just Call You a Burned-out House?

2010-09-30T23:47:00.000-04:00

Frogs and Salt to Cure Spinal Cord Injury

2010-09-29T22:42:00.000-04:00

People with severed limbs, spinal cord injuries and other traumatic wounds may someday be able to regrow lost nerves and tissue with the help of sodium, a new study suggests.

By using drugs to prompt a flood of sodium ions into injured nerve cells, biologists from Tufts University were able to regenerate severed tadpole tails — complex appendages containing spinal cord, muscle and other tissue. The study was published Wednesday in the Journal of Neuroscience.

"We certainly feel this will be relevant for human medicine," said lead researcher Michael Levin, the director of the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts. "The name of the game is to control the ionic content of the wound, which is able to kick-start the whole process of regeneration. You can initiate the whole cascade of repair."

Like humans, who can regrow fingertips only as children, tadpoles lose the ability to regenerate their tails with age, the researchers said. In this study, so-called refractory tadpoles, which normally cannot regrow their tails, began growing a duplicate after an hour-long infusion of a specific combination of drugs.

The frog tail is a good model for human regeneration, Levin said, because it repairs injury in the same way, with each tissue making more of itself. Tail regeneration takes about seven days for both young and sodium-treated refractory tadpoles, he said.

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Poor Poor Lady - Next Time Don't Park in the Handicapped Spot

2010-09-22T20:56:00.000-04:00

Lost Lexus

Martena Clinton drove to the Congressional Black Caucus dinner at the Washington Convention Center on Saturday with high expectations. A friend had arranged a ticket, and Clinton wore a special diamond pendant over her black dress. She parked in a handicapped spot close to the intersection of 9th Street and Mount Vernon Place and glanced in the mirror. She decided the diamond pendant didn't go with her dress, took it off and put it in a console.

She displayed a handicapped tag prominently, locked her car and checked with a police officer who happened to be parked right behind her. He assured her the spot was legal. Clinton put her credit cards, cash and makeup in a pocketbook and left it in the trunk, carrying a small purse into the dinner. It was 5:30 p.m.

When she emerged from the dinner at 11:30 p.m., her black 1994 Lexus was gone.

The police officer who responded to Clinton's distressed call told her that the Secret Service had done what many Washingtonians have grown begrudgingly used to:

They ordered numerous cars removed from the area as a security precaution because President Obama was speaking at the dinner.

It should have been simple for Clinton to find her car - police told her that relocated vehicles are typically towed to different spots within a few blocks - but this time police had not kept track of where they had moved it. The Lexus was lost.

District police searched for the car for two hours Saturday night, circling the neighborhood again and again. Clinton, who is a travel consultant, and Gardine Tiggle, the friend who invited her to the dinner, waited at the spot immediately outside the convention center where Clinton had parked the Lexus. Clinton has the handicapped tag because her husband suffered a stroke.

By 1:30 a.m., police had searched a one-mile radius of the convention center and found not a trace of the car.

Embarrassed about the missing vehicle, an officer called area hotels and helped Clinton find a room for the night. On Sunday morning, police resumed the search. Still nothing.

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Rugby Spinal Cord Injuries Decline in Scotland

2010-09-15T20:48:00.000-04:00

A rise in the spinal injury incidence rate in school rugby in Scotland appears to have been stopped after new rules were brought in.

The Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) was concerned that the number of schoolboys suffering spinal injuries was on the rise after seven incidents in the space of three years.

Since the rule changes were brought in last year, there have been no serious spinal injuries among schoolboy players.

The rules prevent boys aged under 16 years from playing in under-17 and under-18-level matches.

In addition, all coaches, teachers and referees now have to undergo a safety training course.

The outcomes of the rule changes are to be presented at the British Orthopaedic Association Congress in Glasgow later this week.

Scotland international rugby star Thom Evans was forced to retire from the game recently after her sustained a severe spinal injury in a collision with Wales player Lee Byrne.

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New Trend of Pole Dancing Leading to Spinal Cord Injury

2010-09-15T20:35:00.001-04:00

If you thought the only danger in pole dancing was std you were wrong.

A MOTHER-OF-TWO from York has been left paralysed after a freak accident during a pole-dancing exercise class.

Debbie Plowman, 32, of Haxby, suffered devastating injuries when she fell, breaking her neck and severely damaging her spinal cord.

After initial neck and head immobilisation at York Hospital, she was transferred to Hull Royal Infirmary for specialist care and surgery on her spine and head.

She was then transferred by air ambulance to the spinal injury unit at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, where she remains on a ventilator to enable her to breathe. At the moment, she is struggling to communicate and is doing so through a computer that tracks her eye movements.

Debbie is hoping to move closer to home next month through a transfer to the Lascelles neurological rehabilitations unit in Harrogate, where she is likely to remain for another six months.

Now her plight has inspired a massive fund-raising drive by relatives and friends, including a Three Peaks walk, a sports dinner at York Racecourse this autumn and a sponsored ascent of Kilimanjaro next autumn. Money raised will go to a Trust fund being set up to help Debbie, and also for Spinal Research UK.

Debbie, who worked at the Tesco store at Clifton Moor and has two young children, Jack, five, and Ruby, two, had been doing pole-dancing exercise classes for two years before the accident happened.

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Good News: Brain Controlled Wheelchair

2010-09-11T21:31:00.000-04:00

Bad: You must be bald and wear a silly white hat

The smart researchers over at the EPFL in Switzerland have come up with a cool brain-controlled wheelchair. This wheelchair will rely on EEG readings to detect specific brain patterns and when combined with artificial intelligence will allow for shared control of the wheelchair. The artificial intelligence will get input from a pair of cameras and some image processing software which is capable of differentiating between different types of objects, helping the wheelchair avoid obstacles.

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Beaten and Bruised Boy Bungies Bad-Ass Double Back Flip

2010-09-06T21:56:00.000-04:00

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Spinal Cord for Spinal Cord?

2010-09-01T22:05:00.001-04:00

A judge in Saudi Arabia is considering paralyzing a criminal as a punishment. More than two years ago Abdul-Aziz al-Mutairi was attacked and paralyzed. He eventually lost his foot as a result of his injuries.

Paralyzing Considered Equivalent Punishment Under Islamic Law

The victim has implored the judge named Saoud bi Suleiman al-Youssef, to invoke an equivalent punishment, which is available under Islamic law according to Yahoo News. The judge began his research into the issue of paralyzing the criminal by calling area hospitals to find out if such an injury as a punishment is possible. At least one hospital declined, but another told the judge that it could be done, but that it must be at a different hospital.

Judges in Saudi Arabia often invoke an eye for an eye punishment. However, King Abdullah has tried to put a stop this type of extreme punishment. Right now Saudi Arabia is actually trying to modernize the country, but these types of old fashioned punishments seem out of sync with the modern world.

An Eye for an Eye?

One of the reasons the victim and his family are asking for the ancient type of punishment is because the attacker, who has not been identified, was sentenced to 14 months in prison, but he was released after seven months. Now, the attacker is a school teacher. Obviously this punishment seems too short. However, the punishment that has been requested is unbelievably extreme. The family of the victim is so committed to the attacker getting an eye for an eye type punishment, that they are willing to send the man abroad to receive the punishment.

If this type of punishment actually happens, it is against international conventions and standards for human rights. It is unbelievable. Of course the victim deserves justice, but this extreme request is way too far. Other extreme punishments have been carried out such as teeth pulled out for a criminal who had smashed out somebody else’s teeth. Also, a person was sentenced to blindness after causing another person to become blind. This is unbelievable -- seriously and completely unbelievable.

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Airline Hit with $500,000 Fine for Egregious Wheelchair User Treatment

2010-08-31T12:47:00.002-04:00

The U.S. Department of Transportation fined AirTran Airways $500,000 for violating laws on handling passengers who must use wheelchairs.

In the enforcement action announced Monday, the DOT found that:

* A review of AirTran's records indicated that it had "a significant number of apparent violations" of the Air Carrier Access Act.

* "A small number of these complaints appear to involve egregious violations..."

* "...In numerous instances, it did not provide a written response to the complainant," as required by law.

* AirTran failed "to adequately categorize and account for all the disability-related issues that were raised in the complaints."

In response, AirTran stated:

"We are dedicated to treating special needs passengers with the highest level of dignity and respect. Our goal is to establish AirTran Airways as the industry leader in addressing the needs of disabled passengers. We take this leadership role seriously and look forward to continually improving our service to this important group of customers"

DOT said AirTran can reduce its fine up to $200,000 by spending a similar amount to improve its system.

That includes up to $60,000 "to establish a council to help the carrier comply with federal disability rules and hire a manager for disability accommodations."

The rest, up to $140,000, "may be used to develop and employ an automated wheelchair tracking system at AirTran's major hub airports within one year that will generate real-time reports of the carrier's wheelchair assistance performance."

Below, we have the rest of AirTran's statement.

Our first priority has always been the safety and comfort of all of our customers. During the past three years, more than 920,000 passengers with disabilities have enjoyed our high-quality, low-cost service. During that time, less than one half of one percent of these customers has reported any type of issue to either the Department of Transportation or the airline.

The overwhelming majority of issues reported by disabled passengers is in relation to the quick availability of wheelchairs. We are working diligently to correct this by implementing a real-time wheelchair tracking system at our biggest operations (ATL, BWI, MCO, MKE) to ensure timely availability of wheelchairs and continuous monitoring of our performance.

While the number of special needs passengers not fully satisfied with our service is less than one half of one percent of all disabled passengers that have flown with us over the past three years, we constantly strive to improve our service and are dedicated to making a good flying experience even better for all of our customers.

Proactive steps we are taking to improve the quality of our customer service as it relates to special needs passengers:

• We are implementing several initiatives to continue to enhance our ability to serve special needs passengers with the highest level of dignity and care. They include:

- Establishing a cross-divisional Disability Compliance Council. This group, comprised of AirTran senior officers, will oversee, manage and continually improve all aspects of our disability compliance programs and act as an advocate for special needs customers at the highest level of the company.

- Creating a new, dedicated position (Manager of Disability Accommodations), to proactively address the needs of disabled passengers and focus exclusively on continually improving our ability to serve this important group of customers.

- Developing a special needs-specific digital curriculum to ensure that all frontline Crew Members are familiar with proper handling requirements and techniques in assisting special needs passengers.

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Stem Cell Scientists Push Forward for Eminent First Human Tests

2010-08-29T20:35:00.000-04:00

Even as supporters of human embryonic stem cell research are reeling from last week's sudden cutoff of federal funding, another portentous landmark is quietly approaching: the world's first attempt to carefully test the cells in people.

Scientists are poised to inject cells created from embryonic stem cells into some patients with a progressive form of blindness and others with devastating spinal cord injuries. That's a welcome step for researchers eager to move from the laboratory to the clinic and for patients hoping for cures. But beyond being loathsome to those with moral objections to any research using cells from human embryos, the tests are worrying many proponents: Some argue that the experiments are premature, others question whether they are ethical, and many fear that the trials risk disaster for the field if anything goes awry.

"We desperately need to know how these cells are going to perform in the human setting," said John Gearhart, a stem cell pioneer at the University of Pennsylvania. "But are we transplanting cells that are going to cause tumors? Will they will stay where you put them and do what you want them to do?"

Supporters of these privately funded, government-sanctioned tests, including patients' advocates, bioethicists and officials at the companies sponsoring them, are confident that research has been exhaustively vetted. The Food and Drug Administration has demanded extensive experiments in the laboratory and on animals to provide evidence that the cells are safe enough to test in people and hold great promise.

"We're very optimistic," said Thomas B. Okarma, president and chief executive of Geron Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif., which after years of delay received a green light in July from the FDA to study patients partially paralyzed by spinal cord injuries. "If we're right, we'll revolutionize the treatment of many chronic diseases."

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Judge Blocks Federal Stem Cell Research

2010-08-23T22:28:00.000-04:00

A federal judge on Monday issued a preliminary injunction that blocks the federal government from funding medical research involving human embryonic stem cells, a blow to the Obama administration's bid to expand stem-cell research efforts.

U.S. Chief District Court Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington ruled that government funding for embryonic stem-cell research was barred by a law that prohibits the use of federal money for research in which an embryo is destroyed.

Lamberth said Congress clearly intended to bar federal funding of research involving embryo destruction, and added, "This Court is bound to apply the law as it is written."

The judge rejected the Obama administration's argument that embryonic stem-cell research itself did not result in the destruction of embryos.

In March 2009, President Barack Obama issued an executive order lifting barriers to stem-cell research that had been established under President George W. Bush. In July 2009, the National Institutes of Health issued specific guidelines on use of stem cells.

The guidelines allowed funding for research using human embryonic stem cells that were derived from human embryos created by in vitro fertilization for reproductive purposes and were no longer needed.

Bush, in 2001, had restricted federal funding only to research involving the limited number of embryonic stem-cell lines that were already in existence.

Many social conservatives oppose the research. A group of doctors and Christian organizations filed a lawsuit last year challenging the NIH guidelines.

Steven Aden, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund and a lawyer for the challengers, said the ruling "is in line with Congress's intention that taxpayer funds should not be used to destroy human life."

The White House and NIH referred requests for comment to the Justice Department. A Justice spokeswoman said the agency was reviewing the ruling.

Sean Tipton, spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said the judge's injunction "blocks important research on how to unlock the enormous potential of human embryonic stem cells."

"It will be incredibly disruptive and once again drive the best scientific minds into work less likely to yield treatments for conditions from diabetes to spinal cord injury," Tipton said.

Stem cells are the building blocks of the body's tissues and organs. Those derived from embryos can develop into any type of tissue and are considered especially promising for research into diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

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Finally a Cure, Again

2010-08-20T23:46:00.000-04:00

Human neural stem cells 'can restore mobility in chronic spinal cord injury cases'

In a first of its kind study, researchers have shown the reversal of long-term hind-limb paralysis.

The UC Irvine study demonstrated that human neural stem cells can restore mobility in cases of chronic spinal cord injury, suggesting the prospect of treating a much broader population of patients.

Previous breakthrough stem cell studies have focused on the acute, or early, phase of spinal cord injury, a period of up to a few weeks after the initial trauma when drug treatments can lead to some functional recovery.

The study, led by Aileen Anderson and Brian Cummings of the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, is significant because the therapy can restore mobility during the later chronic phase, the period after spinal cord injury in which inflammation has stabilized and recovery has reached a plateau.

There are no drug treatments to help restore function in such cases.

For the study, the researchers transplanted human neural stem cells into mice 30 days after a spinal cord injury caused hind-limb paralysis.

The cells then differentiated into neural tissue cells, such as oligodendrocytes and early neurons, and migrated to spinal cord injury sites.

Three months after initial treatment, the mice demonstrated significant and persistent recovery of walking ability in two separate tests of motor function when compared to control groups.

"Human neural stem cells are a novel therapeutic approach that holds much promise for spinal cord injury. This study builds on the extensive work we previously published in the acute phase of injury and offers additional hope to those who are paralyzed or have impaired motor function," said Anderson.

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Spinal Cord Stem Cell Growth Long After Injury

2010-08-18T23:57:00.004-04:00

Immature human nerve cells grew in the spines of injured mice and helped them walk a little better, researchers said on Wednesday in a study they said shows it may be possible to treat patients weeks or months after their accidents.

The study, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE, suggests there is a longer period of opportunity than previously thought to treat spinal cord injuries.

It is very difficult to heal damaged spinal cords and most studies have shown that any treatment attempt must take place within days after the injury to do any good.

But a team using StemCells Inc's nerve stem cells taken from aborted fetuses found that even a month after injury, the cells took up residence in the spine, proliferated and helped mice walk better.

The California-based company hopes to begin human tests of the cells in 2011.

The cells are a form of stem cell, the master cells of the body. These are technically adult stem cells, taken from the partly developed brains of fetuses and tested for qualities showing they are destined to form particular types of nerve cells.

Dr. Aileen Anderson of the University of California, Irvine and colleagues tested 37 mice, damaging their spinal cords surgically and then transfusing either the StemCells product, ordinary human skin cells or a placebo.

The cells migrated through the spine, grew and began to function, the researchers said. When tested for coordination, 64 percent of the stem-cell-treated mice walked better, compared to 44 percent of mice treated with ordinary cells and 20 percent of placebo-treated mice.

The report is available here

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Wheelchair Stalker

2010-08-14T16:36:00.000-04:00

Introducing the wheelchair that can stalk

The Human-Robot Interaction Center at Japan's Saitama University is developing a wheelchair whose camera and laser sensor enable it to track--and follow--the person next to it.

The wheelchair, which is considered standard in all other respects, uses a distance sensor to determine which way the followed person's shoulders are facing so that it can change direction as the leader does.

"[Care] facilities sometimes don't have enough staff, so a single helper has to push two wheelchairs," a Saitama spokesperson says in a news report. "With wheelchairs like this, which can follow automatically, you can have two, three, or four moving together. So we aim to use this type of wheelchair in practical applications."

Of course there's always the potential for impractical and uproarious applications, such as group wheelchair line dancing alongside a charitable leader. One never knows what lies in Paula Abdul's future.

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If you were a mouse you'd be walking now

2010-08-09T21:40:00.000-04:00

Mice movement neurons regenerated after spinal cord injury

Researchers have been searching for decades for a way to mend damage to the spinal cord, an injury that can lead to life-long paralysis. Even the smallest of breaks in these crucial central nerve fibers can result in the loss of leg, arm and other bodily functions. And attempts to prompt healing, through stem cells or growth factors, have yet to achieve widespread success.

Previous research had been stepping closer to encouraging neuronal growth—which usually stops after physical maturation. And a 2008 study co-authored by Zhigang He, a neurologist at Children's Hospital Boston, announced success in shutting down a gene that stops neuron cell growth, thus enticing damaged nerves to start growing again. Through that process, the team was able to reestablish a severed optical nerve connection in mice.

A new study, co-authored in part by He and other members of the 2008 team, demonstrates nerves necessary for voluntary movement could be regenerated in mice with spinal cord damage after removing a common enzyme that regulates the neuronal cell growth.* The results were published online August 8 in Nature Neuroscience (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group).

The removed enzyme PTEN, a phosphatase and tensin homolog, helps to dictate activity in the mTOR pathway, which plays a role in cell growth. During maturation, PTEN is activated, halting cell regeneration, but after removing it from a group of experimental mice with spinal cord injury, the neurons grew as they did in the development phase.

The researchers propose that "neuronal growth competence is dependent on the capability of new protein synthesis, which provides building blocks for axonal regrowth." Restarting the mTOR pathway, what the authors term a "'rejuvenation' strategy," could "be widely applicable for promoting successful regeneration following many types of injuries or traumas in the adult [central nervous system]."

Reestablishing this communication across those broken synapses could be life-changing for the millions of people who live with spinal cord injury across the world—especially given that the majority of cases occur in middle age, when these neuron cell growth pathways are already shut down. "Paralysis and loss of function from spinal cord injury has been considered untreatable," Oswald Steward, a professor of anatomy and neurobiology at University of California, Irvine and co-author of the new paper, said in a prepared statement. "Our discovery points the way toward a potential therapy to induce regeneration of nerve connections following spinal cord injury in people."

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Iraqi War Veteran Will Be First In Line

2010-08-04T22:24:00.000-04:00

Paralyzed Iraqi War Veteran Will Be First to Receive Adult Stem Cells to Treat Spinal Cord Injuries at TCA Cellular Therapy

TCA Cellular Therapy, LLC has enrolled its first patient to participate in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first adult stem cell clinical trial to treat spinal cord injuries. Enrollee and Marine Veteran, Matt Cole was paralyzed from the chest down in a 2005 insurgent attack in Iraq.

“At minimum, our team expects this therapy will provide some improvement to the patient’s motory and sensory functions with no side effects.”

According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center (February 2010), it is estimated that up to 311,000 people in the U.S. are living with a Spinal Cord Injury with the average health care and living expenses cost for the first year following the injury as much as $830,000 per patient.

TCA Cellular’s neurological team is led by stem cell experts Jose J. Minguell, PhD, Carolina Allers, PhD, and Gabriel Lasala, MD, neurosurgeon Gustavo Gutnisky, MD, and neurologist Srinivas Ganji, MD. The team is scheduled to treat ten patients in Phase I.

“Many spinal cord injury patients have no effective treatment available at this time,” stated Dr. Gutnisky. “I’m very encouraged by the results of the pre-clinical trials and anticipate this may become a significant therapy for these patients in the near future.”

Utilizing TCA Cellular’s proprietary therapy, a couple of thousand adult stem cells have been extracted from the patient’s own bone marrow, Mesenchymal Stem Cells have been separated, purified, multiplied to millions and will be infused into Cole’s spinal cord later this month.

“In theory we expect the cells to repair damaged neurons,” explained TCA Cellular president, Dr. Lasala. “At minimum, our team expects this therapy will provide some improvement to the patient’s motory and sensory functions with no side effects.”

About TCA Cellular Therapy

Under the scientific guidance of cellular biologist, Jose J. Minguell, Ph.D., TCA Cellular Therapy, LLC is a biotherapeutic adult stem cell research and development company. The company has been recognized by the FDA as one of the top 10 U.S. companies researching stem cell therapies. Founded in 2006, the privately-held company has multiple ongoing FDA clinical trials utilizing patient’s own cells. The company is located in Covington, Louisiana.

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Danny Magoo Chandler Dies at Age 50 - Only 25 Years Later Almost Gets a Van

2010-08-01T13:19:00.001-04:00

Danny “Magoo” Chandler died May 4th as a result of illnesses related to paralysis. The Hall of Fame rider was 50 years old.

The Sacramento, California native was known for his wild style and wide-open charge. Magoo was a fan favorite from the time he turned professional in 1976. His first real success came with a top-10 finish in the 1981 125cc Motocross Nationals.

He signed with factory Honda in 1982 and began the biggest year of his career. Perhaps the most memorable victory was claiming the U.S. 500cc Motocross Grand Prix. Besting the Europeans at Carlsbad Raceway that day notched his name in the history books. He furthered his international fame by winning every 250cc moto at the ’82 Trophies des Nations in Germany, and every 500cc moto at the Motocross des Nations in Switzerland – the only rider ever to achieve the feat. He also won the ABC Wide World of Sports Superbikers race, which was essentially the first event of what we now call Supermoto.

Magoo went on to finish third in the AMA 500cc series in ’83 but suffered through ’84 with injuries. He switched to the World Motocross Championship in 1985, ultimately settling with an Italian Kawasaki team, but a crash at the Paris Supercross in December of 1985 left him paralyzed.

Following the accident, Chandler embarked on a mission to help spread motorcycle safety, particularly to young riders. Other endeavors included race promotion for mountain bikes and cooperation with the DARE drug awareness program.

The industry has been hard at work to provide Danny with a specially equipped vehicle to make it easier for him to travel and conduct his seminars. The Danny Magoo Chandler Van Fund was completed and the project finalized on May 4, the same day as his death.

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Stem Cell Treatment on Spinal Cord Injured to begin on humans

2010-07-31T18:06:00.001-04:00

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the all-clear to a clinical trial of embryonic stem cells as a treatment for spinal-cord injury.

It is potentially the first time embryonic stem cells will be tested on humans.

The developer of the treatment, Geron Corporation, said the FDA had removed a clinical hold on its GRNOPC1 therapy.

It hopes to start testing GRNOPC1 on humans by year's end, enrolling eight to 10 patients across the US.

The trial will take about two years, with each patient being studied for one year.

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Quadriplegic John Callahan: Irreverent, Hilarious, Touching, and Sometimes Tasteless, Dies

2010-07-28T22:42:00.002-04:00

Fearless John Callahan pushed boundaries of taste and humor with his art Gallery

On Saturday, John Callahan died at 59. He was among the most brilliant and original cartoonists who ever lived. If you never heard of him, it is because he assured his semi-obscurity by venturing into some of the most unnerving, taboo areas imaginable, in a fearless pursuit of humor.

A blind man is plummeting off a cliff. In front of him, on a leash, also falling, is a small animal. The blind man is thinking, "Why did I buy a seeing-eye lemming?"

Callahan was a quadriplegic; he drew with two spastic hands, held together as if in prayer, each giving the other just enough support to fashion a semi-straight line, a line just squirrelly enough to give the drawing a slightly lunatic feel. As it happens, "slightly lunatic" was perfect.

A man is selling puppies on the street. The grim reaper has walked up to him, accompanied by her three little grim reaper children. They are excitedly bouncing around, saying, "Mommy! Mommy! Can we kill the puppies?"

In the late 1980s, when we were editors of the Sunday magazine of the Miami Herald, Tom Shroder and I first saw a Callahan cartoon in a small weekly newspaper in Oregon -- the only sort of paper at the time that would run his stuff. This was it:

Two horseflies are sitting on a couch. The male fly is putting the moves on the female fly. On the floor, in front of them, are some little round objects. The female fly is saying: "Darling! Not in front of the maggots!"

A few weeks later, Tom and I began running Callahan's work every week in our magazine, Tropic. I believe we gave Callahan his first big break in the mainstream media, and it began a long collaboration and friendship.

Headless bodies are stumbling out of a restaurant, blood spurting from the necks. The restaurant's name is "The Low Ceiling-Fan Cafe."

I think Callahan, who never achieved any significant degree of commercial success, was the first and best to apply such darkness to the comics; this sort of edge is now almost mainstream. If you watch "Family Guy" or "South Park" or "American Dad," you will see that they are Callahan's children.

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Callahan's Web Page

Stingley's "Assassin" Dies

2010-07-27T23:19:00.000-04:00

Jack Tatum, Whose Tackle Paralyzed Player, Dies at 61

Jack Tatum, the former Oakland Raiders player who earned the nickname the Assassin for his brutal hits, none of them more devastating than a blow that left New England Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley paralyzed in 1978, died Tuesday in Oakland, Calif. He was 61.
Ben Margot/Associated Press

Tatum, known as the Assassin, burnished the Raiders’ outlaw image with hits like this one on Minnesota’s Sammy White.

The Raiders announced his death on their Web site. The cause was a heart attack, Tatum’s friend and former Ohio State teammate John Hicks told The Associated Press. Tatum had suffered from diabetes in recent years, leading to the amputation of a leg.

Tatum played 10 seasons in the National Football League and won a Super Bowl ring in 1977 with the Raiders, whose outlaw image was enhanced by Tatum’s ferocious style of play.

Tatum, a three-time Pro Bowl selection, was one of the most feared hitters in football, and he came to be a symbol of a violent game. “I like to believe that my best hits border on felonious assault,” he wrote in a 1980 book, “They Call Me Assassin.”

His collision with Stingley, one of the most indelible in N.F.L. history, defined Tatum’s reputation. It came on Aug. 12, 1978, in a preseason game against the Patriots at Oakland Coliseum. Stingley was running a crossing pattern, and the force of the hit fractured two vertebrae in Stingley’s neck and severely damaged his spinal cord, leaving him a quadriplegic.

No penalty flags were thrown and Tatum was not disciplined — but Stingley and Tatum never reconciled. Tatum did not apologize for the hit, earning him considerable national scorn.

“It was tough on him, too,” Hicks told The A.P. “He wasn’t the same person after that. For years he was almost a recluse.”

In his 1980 book, Tatum wrote: “When the reality of Stingley’s injury hit me with its full impact, I was shattered. To think that my tackle broke another man’s neck and killed his future.”

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Wheelchair Dude Joins Fun

2010-07-25T12:54:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday ADA!

2010-07-22T22:45:00.000-04:00

A generation has passed since Rene David Luna, 54, chained his wheelchair in front of a CTA bus and swung a sledgehammer to make a point about the city's sidewalks.

Since then, he said, the world has changed in ways that younger people cannot imagine.

"People assume the buses all arrived with lifts on them," Luna said. "They don't know we had to fight for them."

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Two decades ago, activists combined their struggle to navigate ordinary obstacles with the extraordinary effort of convincing the country that the rights of the disabled were as fundamental as the rights of other minorities.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of that effort's culmination in the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act, signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990.

The law established broad civil rights for people with disabilities and promoted their full participation in and access to services and activities, paving the way for the next generation of disabled Americans to expect access as a basic right.

Joe Russo, a 45-year-old attorney who is deputy commissioner of compliance in Mayor Richard Daley's Office for People With Disabilities, said it is a mark of the law's achievement.

"I'm glad," he said. "I want them to take it for granted."

Things were different when Russo, who has used a wheelchair most of his life as a result of a degenerative disease, was attending law school at New York University in the late 1980s. The campus, he said, had virtually no accommodations, forcing him to use backdoor delivery entrances.

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Well at Least She Had Something to Eat While She Waited for Help

2010-07-16T20:51:00.001-04:00

Wheelchair Lady Saved by Blackberries

A Roseburg woman is lucky she was found Thursday afternoon after a bizarre accident.

The woman, who lives in the Riverview Terrace Retirement Center at the corner of Stewart Parkway and Harvard was attempting to cross the bridge over the South Umpqua River towards Stewart Park.

Her motorized wheelchair slipped off the right side of the pedestrian walkway just before entering the bridge.

Firefighters say she and the wheelchair rolled down the embankment into a large grow of blackberries.

Thankfully, a passing motorist saw the chair and stopped to see what was going on. They say the woman was so far into the vines that they couldn't see her, but they heard her calling out for help.

Firefighters had to cut away the berry vines to get to her, and they were able to carry the woman up to the sidewalk.

She was transported to Mercy Medical Center for treatment, and northbound traffic was shut down for about a half hour while the woman was rescued from the berry patch.

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You Will Not Win Any Races Here But Up You Go

2010-07-15T21:38:00.001-04:00

Bionic legs allow paralyzed man to walk again

When Hayden Allen suffered a spinal cord injury in a motorbike accident five years ago, doctors told him he’d never walk again.

But today a revolutionary product developed by a New Zealand biotech company has enabled him to do just that.

Mr Allen has been one of the first people in the world to use Rex, the Robotic Exoskeleton - a pair of robotic legs that supports and assists a person who usually uses a wheelchair.

It lets them stand, walk and go up and down steps and slopes.

‘I’ll never forget what it was like to see my feet walking under me the first time I used Rex,' said Mr Allen.

‘People say to me, "Look up when you’re walking" but I just can’t stop staring down at my feet moving.’

Rex users move from their chair into Rex, strap themselves in and control their movements using a joystick and control pad.

The equipment weighs 38kg (84lb) and is individually made for each user.

It is powered by a lightweight, long-life rechargeable battery.

Mr Allen, a mechanic, also spoke of how liberated he felt around his workshop as he now has far more access to machinery - and he can finally talk to people at eye level again.

Dr Richard Roxburgh, Auckland neurologist and medical adviser to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, said: ‘For many of my patients, Rex represents the first time they’ve been able to stand up and walk for years.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1295024/Bionic-legs-let-paralysed-man-walk-again.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0tnvjCi63

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Dallas Cowboys Facility Collapse: Rich Behm Left Paralyzed - Update

2010-07-14T21:00:00.000-04:00

Dallas Cowboys staff member Rich Behm was seriously injured and left paralyzed from the waist down when the team's practice facility collapsed in May. Here are Babe Laufenberg's thoughts about the interview, the only one Behm has given since he was injured.

As with any interview, you always want to get the story right and to do justice to the subject at hand. I have always believed in fairness; always tried very hard to make sure that the subject was the story, not me doing the interview.

This story was a bit unique for me, however. I have known Rich Behm for many years, as well as his brother, Chris. Chris works in the Cowboys Television Department, and I have done many shows with Chris, both radio and television. I received the call from Chris as he was driving to the hospital the night of the accident. He was at a wedding a couple of hours away, knowing that in all likelihood his brother would never walk again. I could sense the helplessness in his voice, the anxiety, and the feeling that if he had been at the facility, maybe, just maybe, there would have been something he could have done. No matter how much reality would tell you otherwise, I think you could understand his thought process.

I think we all try to imagine how we would handle certain situations that occur in other people's lives, both tragic and triumphant. The truth is, we don't really know until we are actually confronted with the situation.

I have spoken to Rich many times since the accident, but always on the relatively superficial level, thinking -- however naively -- that, "Hey, maybe if I don't mention it, he won't know he is paralyzed."

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Bear Attacks, Carries Off, and Eats Wheelchair User

2010-07-11T18:33:00.000-04:00

Anchorage Police are asking residents to take extra precautions around bears after a bizarre incident Thursday morning almost a triggered a bear attack in East Anchorage.

Officers say they responded to the 200 block of Yellow Leaf Circle just after 10 a.m. when neighbors called to report a woman was chasing a bear down an alley.

When they arrived, they learned that a black bear had jumped into Karan Nixon's fenced yard on the nearby Orange Leaf Circle, snatching her pet rabbit "George" with its teeth.

After hearing the rabbit screaming, the Nixon, who was wearing stockings, then chased the bear through several yards and down an alley.

However, the bear kept running, jumped over a fence and took off with George.

Neighbors say George was well known in the neighborhood because his back two legs were paralyzed, so his previous owner built him a two-wheeled cart to get around in. In addition, George was in training to become a therapy pet.

Neighbors also told police they were concerned for children and other pets in the Muldoon area because that particular bear had been causing problems recently in the neighborhood, getting into trash and people's yards.

Although Nixon was not hurt in this situation, Police say they'd like to remind all Anchorage residents to keep a close eye on their pets while bears are active, especially when they are near food.

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Move the Stroller So the Disabled Chick Doesn't Kill Herself

2010-07-07T21:23:00.000-04:00

Transit priority seating pits baby strollers against wheelchairs

Lyle Attfield couldn’t just sit by and watch. As he tells it, he was sitting on a bus when the driver denied service to a man in a wheelchair waiting at a stop.

The priority seating was full, taken up by parents with strollers.

“(The bus driver) didn’t want to ask the strollers to move and technically, that’s in their mandate,” said Attfield, who has been lobbying B.C. Transit to enforce its rules for years. “If you keep pushing the disabled out, they stay inside and the suicide rate goes up. It all comes down to human rights.”

On this day, however, Attfield took matters into his own hands.

After arguing with the driver, he got off the bus and sat down on the front bumper in protest. Eventually a police officer ended the standoff and gave Attfield a $115 ticket for disrupting bus travel.

On June 21, a provincial traffic court judge upheld the ticket, but Attfield plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.

“This has got to stop,” said Attfield, who has a disability but does not use a wheelchair.

B.C. Transit’s policy suggests wheelchair users have priority.

“Strollers must be collapsible,” according to information posted on its website. “When the wheelchair positions are required by another customer using a wheelchair or scooter: the customer should fold the stroller, move to another available seat and store the stroller between the seats.”

Compliance with the policy, however, is left to the discretion of the customer.

“As a public service, we cannot deny service to customers that in are in compliance with our rules,” according to information from the public relations department.

“Transit operates on first-come, first-served basis. In reality, we have found that most of our customers are willing to offer their seats for people with disabilities or mobility challenges.”

Joanne Neubauer, however, thinks enforcement of the stroller-folding recommendation is needed.

“We think the bus drivers need to be doing their job,” she said.

As vice-president of the Action Committee of People with Disabilities, Neubauer uses a wheelchair and relies on the bus to go everywhere. She’s also been left waiting at the curb many times when strollers are parked in the priority seating.

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Take the Spinal Cord Injury Quiz

2010-07-06T21:10:00.000-04:00

Take the following quiz to test your understanding of spinal cord injury and its causes.

1: Firearms are a leading cause of spinal cord injury.
TRUE/FALSE

2: You don’t have to have direct trauma to your neck to actually break the vertebrae and injure the cord.
TRUE/FALSE

3: Helmets will help prevent spinal cord injuries.
TRUE/FALSE

4: Spinal cord injuries can paralyze you, but not kill you directly.
TRUE/FALSE

5: Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of spinal cord injury in people under the age of 65.
TRUE/FALSE

6: If you suffer an injury like a fractured cervical vertebrae (neck bone) that can lead to a spinal cord injury, you may not have any pain or symptoms right away.
TRUE/FALSE

ANSWERS

1: TRUE — If you’ve ever seen pictures of EMTs and paramedics working on a gunshot wound victim you may also have noticed the patient often is immobilized on a long backboard with a cervical collar, even when there appears to be no injury to the neck or back. The force of a bullet going into the torso creates a strong energy wave and, in some cases, a sudden and extreme increase in heat. This pressure and heat can cause severe damage to surrounding bone and tissue even without direct contact from the bullet. Patients are kept immobile on a backboard until spinal injuries are ruled out.

2: TRUE — For example, hitting your head on the bottom of a pool can cause direct trauma to your forehead, but the force is transferred back to the cervical (neck) portion of the spine and can result in a breaking of the vertebral bone and a stretching, tearing, or severing of the spinal nerves that are supposed to be protected within the vertebral bones. This also factors in with injuries sustained when diving into the surf and not knowing there’s a sandbar or shallow water beneath; diving into a lake or river and not realizing it’s shallow or that there are rocks, pilings, old cars, or other obstructions hidden below the surface; or body surfing on a day when the surf is rough and the waves are breaking close to shore. The latter are known as “dumpers” because they “dump” you hard onto the sand.

3: FALSE – Helmets protect your head and, depending on the type, your face, too. They do little to nothing to protect your spine.

4: FALSE – If the spinal injury is up high enough on the neck, you will not be able to control your breathing. If you are in the water when this occurs, death may occur even faster, especially if you are face down and nobody realizes you cannot roll yourself over. Many sufferers of spinal cord injury do die of secondary problems, months or years later.

5: TRUE — Being thrown from a car greatly increases the risk of spinal cord injury. Even low-speed accidents can cause spinal injury if no seat belt was worn. Insist that everyone (including you) wear a seat belt, and don’t drive with anyone who has been drinking alcohol.

6: TRUE — It’s not uncommon to have EMTs and paramedics immobilize a person at the scene of an accident based solely on what we call the mechanism of injury. Even if symptoms are not present, a cervical bone fracture may be present. This broken bone could move and slice the spinal cord or there may be a contusion (bruise) on the spinal cord that may not result in numbness or paralysis until the swelling increases minutes to hours later. If the pre-hospital medical personnel suggest you go to the hospital to have your neck/spine checked out, do so. There may be indications of this type of injury of which you are unaware.

More than half the 11,000 people who suffer spinal cord injury each year are between the ages of 15 and 29. Most of these tragic injuries are the result of sports injuries, diving, car accidents, and gunshot wounds. Older adults tend to suffer spinal cord injury more often from falls.

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Motorcycle for Wheelchair User

2010-07-04T12:58:00.001-04:00

The Mobility Conquest, a sleek motorcycle trike designed for the wheelchair-bound, will make its debut July 4-9 at the National Veteran’s Wheelchair Games in Denver.

We are excited to participate and sponsor the Veterans Wheelchair Games. We look forward to helping our service men and women reconnect with their passion for riding motorcycles.

The Conquest offers stylish freedom for the wheelchair-bound driver with challenges from the waist down who wants to still enjoy the thrill of riding a cycle on the open road. The Conquest offers convenience, maneuverability and safety to a driver. It also offers independence as entry into the trike is easy with the driver remaining in his/her own wheelchair and gliding up the built-in, rear ramp. The trike then safely locks into place for a smooth ride. The Mobility Conquest is dedicated to providing handicapped persons who have a love of the road and desire to reconnect with the sport following disability.

The trike is fully road and track tested and complies with U.S. safety standards. A BMW engine allows the trike to accelerate to 60 mph in 7.6 seconds. Six hand-controlled forward gears plus reverse and keyless entry are standard on all Conquests. Each trike can be tailored to individual needs and other options are also available. An added benefit: each trike can comfortably accommodate a passenger. Uniquely designed front and rear suspension help to avoid any changes to driving or handling due to the increased weight of a passenger. Another benefit is that a service animal may also ride along.

The Conquest Motorcycle

We are excited to participate and sponsor the Veterans Wheelchair Games. We look forward to helping our service men and women reconnect with their passion for riding motorcycles.

Catch a Wave and You'lll be Sitting on Top of a Chair

2010-07-02T22:07:00.000-04:00

Summer at the Jersey Shore usually comes with a dip in the ocean. It's refreshing, fun and potentially treacherous.

It left Paul Haynes a quadriplegic, and 21-year-old Madeline McNichol with a broken neck.

"I was in so much pain," said Madeline.

"I thought I was going to die," said Paul. He was just standing in waist deep water in Ocean City to cool off, when a powerful wave changed his life forever.

"I didn't think it had the strength that it did to pick me up because I'm 6-5 and I weigh 250 pounds. And believe me I was picked up like a rag doll and drove me straight into the ocean bottom," said Paul.

Video...

In an instant, this hard working New Jersey family man was paralyzed and just barely alive.

"He looked at me and I said it's going to be okay. Sorry and he rolled his eyes back like ya know, gee I don't know. It was pretty traumatic," said Jeanne Haynes, Paul's wife.

Paul survived and now depends on his wife and a wheelchair for everything.

"I didn't think it was possible," said Paul.

"The oceans a dangerous place," said Nancy McNichol, Madeline's mother. She's relieved her daughter is home and able to move, after the accident less than two weeks ago.

Every summer the family goes to Wildwood Crest. Madeline has dived into the ocean hundreds of times. This time her head slammed into a sandbar.

"The waves are rough. The water gets very shallow very quickly. The tides change. The sandbars come in and they go and it's not, it's not as safe," said Madeline. She knows she's very lucky.

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Popeye Never Had a Spinal Cord Injury

2010-06-24T22:58:00.000-04:00

Folate study shows promise in healing spinal cord injuries

A study funded by the U.S. Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, produced results that show the vitamin folate appears to promote healing in damaged rat spinal cord tissue by triggering a change in DNA. Findings of the study were published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Researchers report that the healing effects of the vitamin increased with the dosage, until regrowth of the damaged tissue reached a maximum level. Additional studies are needed to determine what role folate might play in spinal cord injury treatment for human beings.

Folate is a water-soluble B vitamin that occurs naturally in leafy green vegetables and other foods. Folate helps produce and maintain cells, and is needed to make DNA and RNA, the building blocks of cells. The vitamin is important for the formation of the brain and spinal cord in the early embryo.

The U.S. Public Health Service recommends that all women of childbearing age consume 400 micrograms of folic acid each day to reduce their risk of having a child with a brain or spinal cord injury.

In addition to leafy green vegetables, you can find folate in citrus fruits and juices, and dried beans and peas. In 1996, the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, published regulations requiring the addition of folic acid to enriched breads, cereals, flours, corn meals, pastas, rice, and other grain products.

Some medications such as anti-convulsants, metformin, and barbiturates may interfere with folate utilization and render you deficient. Symptoms of a folate deficiency may include digestive disorders such as diarrhea, loss of appetite, and weight loss. Additional signs may include weakness, headaches, sore tongue, heart palpitations, irritability, forgetfulness, and behavioral disorders, however, all of these symptoms may indicate various other medical conditions as well.

Individuals over 50 years of age are forewarned by health experts to be aware of a potential interaction between folic acid and vitamin B12, and to keep their health care providers informed if they are taking folic acid supplements.

Please click here for a Folic Acid Pamphlet provided by the Michigan Department of Community Health Birth Defects Program. It provides a list of foods that contain folic acid and provides information on reading food labels.

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Glimmer of Hope from a Mouse

2010-06-21T19:41:00.000-04:00

Mice hair could repair spinal damage

A POTENTIAL treatment for spinal cord injuries has been found in the most unlikely of places - mice hair.

The ground-breaking discovery, unveiled at the World Congress for Hair Research in Cairns on Friday, may give a glimmer of hope to those who cannot walk, The Cairns Post reports.

US and Japanese researchers have found a new source of stem cells in the hair follicles of mice.

The stem cells, discovered by chance by scientists from research lab Anticancer, based in San Diego, have been found to repair nerve and spinal cord injury in mice, allowing them to walk again.

Similar cells obtained from human hair also had the same effect on mice, potentially demonstrating the same treatment could be applied to humans suffering spinal cord injuries.

Researchers stumbled on the discovery while examining the skin of mice, attempting to trace cancer cells.

Anticancer president Robert Hoffman, who is also a professor at the University of California’s medical centre said when the cells were placed into the severed nerve of a mouse, it was found to eventually rejoin and regain its function.

In a remarkable video shown at the conference, a mouse with its spinal cord severed was filmed running about after it had been treated with the hair follicle based stem cells.

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Significant Advances "Just Around the Corner"

2010-06-16T20:16:00.000-04:00

Stem cell research that could offer hope to spinal cord injury victims has received a massive boost in Canada, with a C$2.3million grant allowing scientists to explore how stem cells could help to repair damaged nerves. The money will provide vital pre-clinical testing facilities to the Hotchkiss Brain Institute in Calgary. The research is of international importance and, if successful, could mean a huge advance in the treatment of spinal cord injuries.

The institute has recently carried out tests on rodents that have enabled the scientists to find ways of repairing and redirecting damaged nerves so that they are able to function in the same way prior to the onset of the damage. The funding will allow the team to continue their work as well as develop practical, marketable applications for their discoveries. The institute also believes that the additional funding will allow them to draw in some of the top scientists in the field to work on the project and combine the best intellectual resources to push the work forward.

“This is great news for victims suffering from spinal cord injuries,” comments Paul Breen of specialist claims experts Serious Law. “Spinal cord injuries, although not common, have a devastating effect on victims. Any research that offers hope of increased mobility, a greater chance of recovery and a return to an almost normal life is to be welcomed with open arms. Stem cell research, despite its sometimes controversial nature, is demonstrating itself to be of incredible importance in the advancement of more complex treatments for serious injuries. This news from Canada shows that the scientific community is taking this research very seriously indeed. It could mean considerable advances in treatments are just around the corner,” he adds.

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Please Don't Try This At Home

2010-06-07T22:26:00.003-04:00

Scratches on the Face but Possible Spinal Cord Injury Next Time

2010-06-07T19:13:00.001-04:00

Mountain Bikers Risk Spinal Injuries: Study

A new study of spinal fractures and spinal cord injuries associated with mountain biking suggests the sport may be just as risky as diving, football and cheerleading.

“The medical, personal, and societal costs of these injuries are high,” wrote the authors of the study in a report published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.

Mountain biking, which involves high speeds and long vertical drops over extreme terrain, is growing in popularity. But researchers warn the sport invites a risk of serious spinal injuries, with one of every six cases studied resulting in total paralysis.

Such accidents typically affect young, male, recreational riders, they said.

"People need to know that the activities they choose to engage in may carry with them unique and specific risks," said Dr. Marcel Dvorak of the University of British Columbia in Canada during an interview with Reuters.

"Helmets will not protect you from these injuries, nor will wearing Ninja Turtle-like body armor."

While prior studies have looked at the range of injuries sustained by mountain bikers, and spinal injuries in general across a broad variety of sports, none had yet examined the specific risks of spinal cord injury among mountain bikers.

Dvorak and his team identified 102 men and 5 women who were treated at British Columbia's primary spine center between 1995 and 2007 after suffering a mountain biking accident.

On average, the patients were 33 years old, and all but two were recreational riders.

The researchers determined that over the 13-year study period, the annual rate of spinal injury among those that mountain biked was one in 500,000 British Columbia residents. Furthermore, mountain bikers accounted for 4 percent of all spinal trauma admissions to the center.

Surgery was required for roughly two-thirds of the mountain bikers, but the most serious injuries were the 40 percent involving the spinal cord. Of those, more than four in ten led to complete paralysis, the researchers found.

"Wrist fractures and facial fractures are common…but spine injuries are the most severe with the most profound long-term consequences,” Dvorak said.

The majority of mountain bikers were injured as a result of either being thrust over the handlebars (going "endo") or falling from significant heights ("hucking"), he said.

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