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

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

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

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

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

Wheelchair dude ruse, kicked off nude cruise

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

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Earth shattering Christ's Church paralyzes five

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?

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

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

Wheelchair Access - There's an App for that?

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

Shocking SCI News

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

Spinal Cord Injuries Increasing

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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