Archive for the ‘Spinal Cord Injury’ Category

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Four finalists have been selected in a search to replace interim Dean of the College of Fine Arts Jim Linnell, who suffered a spinal cord injury in Mexico over the winter break, the New Mexico Daily Lobo reported.

Linnell announced last semester that he would be stepping down as dean in June, and a search committee formed last fall received numerous applications from around the country, settling on four finalists, the Daily Lobo said.

The finalists are: Judith Thorpe, professor and head of the Art & Art History Department at the University of Connecticut’s School of Fine Arts; Ronald Shields, professor and chair of the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University; Kymberly Pinder, professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she has served as graduate program head and department chair; and Sanjit Sethi, director of the Center for Art and Public Life and the Barclay Simpson chair of community art at California College of the Arts.

Linnell underwent surgery at the UNM Hospital trauma center on Dec. 29 after receiving initial medical care in Mexico, family members said in a statement.

The statement went on to say that the surgery was successful, that Linnell is in stable condition and will soon begin rehabilitation at a spinal injury clinic in Denver, the Daily Lobo said.

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UNM Eyes Finalists for Fine Arts Dean Post

The federal government has already approved $24 million for the design of the proposed new spinal cord injury unit and renovation of the old complex at the Brockton VA hospital, federal budget documents show.

The hospital now needs $163 million more to construct the building and renovate the older building, according to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs budget documents.

The $188 million project would use a soccer field next to Building 8 for the construction of a 96-bed, long-term care, spinal cord injury unit. Upon completion, the existing 60-bed spinal cord injury unit in Building 8 would be renovated to become an outpatient mental health facility.

But the $163 million needed to complete the process is subject to upcoming budget negotiations.

“Hopefully these will get funded,” said Diane Keefe, a spokesman for the VA Boston Healthcare System. “The budget process is just beginning. (President Obama) just released his budget proposal so the budget has to be approved.”

Obama requested $140.3 billion for the department’s budget, with $52.7 billion earmarked for medical care.

The Brockton campus of the VA Boston Healthcare System, 940 Belmont St., received $24 million in 2009 for the designing of both the new building and the renovation of the older building.

The construction phase of the project is one of 21 projects nationwide that were already started and await completion. The projects in total need $5.9 billion more in funding for completion, according to VA budget documents for fiscal year 2013.

The hospital, which sits on 145 acres of federally owned land, opened in 1953. The complex has 26 buildings connected by an underground tunnel system.

The Brockton campus totals about 1.1 million square feet of hospital space and has 418 total beds. It handles long-term care, spinal cord injuries, mental health, substance abuse, and outpatient care. The campus also boasts a gymnasium and a therapeutic indoor swimming pool.

U.S. Rep Stephen Lynch told The Patriot Ledger editorial board on Monday he is working to secure the remaining funds to complete the project.

“While these funds have yet to be approved, I remain committed to helping the Brockton VA secure this funding,” Lynch said in a statement Tuesday. “Our veterans deserve the very best care we as a nation can offer.”

The new building, Lynch said in the editorial board meeting, would be a more appropriate setting for the hospital’s medical technology.

Lynch also mentioned a goal of securing funds for a clinical addition to the West Roxbury campus, which has 188 beds, originally opening in 1943. According to the budget documents released Monday, the clinical addition to the hospital, which would cost an estimated $296 million, is fourth on the VA’s list of 1,154-item budget priority list.

Alex Bloom may be reached at abloom@enterprisenews.com.

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$24 million approved for design phase of Brockton VA expansion

Public release date: 16-Feb-2012
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Contact: Jennifer Brown
jennifer-l-brown@uiowa.edu
319-356-7124
University of Iowa Health Care

Loss of bone density leads to brittle bones that fracture easily. It is a major complication of spinal cord injury (SCI), which affects about 250,000 Americans every year.

A new clinical trial conducted by University of Iowa researchers shows that delivering high doses of "load," or stress, to bone through programmed electrical stimulation of the muscle significantly slows the loss of bone density in patients with SCI.

The focus on quantifying the effective dose of load is one of the study's most important aspects, says Richard Shields, P.T., Ph.D., a professor and director of the UI Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science Graduate Programs. The study also is the first to carefully test the impact of different doses of load in humans with paralysis.

Previous research had suggested that stressing or loading bone through muscle contractions could slow the loss of bone density, but results from clinical trials have been mixed.

"Thirty years ago a clinical trial concluded that putting patients with SCI in an upright weight-bearing position with braces or standing frames did nothing to prevent loss of bone density," Shields says. "The novelty of our study is we have designed a method for individuals with paralysis to stand (bear weight) while superimposing a dose of muscle force using programmed electrical stimulation of the muscle."

The study findings, published in the journal Osteoporosis International in December 2011, reveal that only high "doses" of muscle force are effective for significantly reducing bone loss.

"The previous studies, without muscle activation, were like doing a drug trial where the dose of drug was too low, or below 'therapeutic threshold,' to cause an effect," Shields explains.

The UI researchers have also recently shown that the electrical stimulation strengthens muscle by activating genes that promote muscle growth and endurance, and improve glucose metabolism.

Testing doses of load

The clinical trial developed by Shields and his team is based on biomechanical modeling and information from bone biology studies that show that bone cells, called osteoblasts, produce new bone only when the load is high enough.

The study compared the effect of "high dose" loads of 150 percent of body weight (induced by electrically stimulating the quadriceps muscle in one leg while the patient was supported in a standing position) with "low dose" load of 40 percent body weight (assisted standing with no electrical stimulation) and "no dose" loads of 0 percent body weight (sitting). Participants were asked to perform their training five times per week for three years and had their bone mineral density and muscle strength tested several times over the study period.

"When we applied a load of 1.5 times their body weight using electrical stimulation of the quadriceps muscle we saw a significant impact on the bone density as well as the expected growth of the skeletal muscle," says Shields.

Specifically, the study found that after three years, average bone density in the femur was almost 40 percent lower in patients who received low dose or no dose load compared to patients who received high dose. The study also showed that high dose load slows the deterioration of the trabecular bone -- the type of bone found at the joint ends of long bones where fractures most often occur.

"Keeping 40 percent of the bone material in the bone should translate into improved overall health along several dimensions, including reducing the risk of fracture, as well as reducing other common complications stemming from SCI, like kidney stones and diabetes," says Shields.

A unique feature of the study was that patients in the high dose group only received muscle stimulation on one leg. This meant that the patients' non-treated leg provided a "within subject" control that clearly contrasted the effect of high dose compared to low dose when all other factors were the same.

Usability key for translating study findings to therapy

Shields notes that for any treatment regimen to be truly useful for patients, it must be something that a patient can easily incorporate in his or her daily life. The study suggested that participants found it fairly easy to stick with the training program. In addition, six of the seven participants on the high-dose protocol were able to participate from home using a specially modified wheelchair that raised them to a standing position and custom-designed stimulators that automatically logged the participant's training.

"It is much harder to make brittle bones strong again. So in a situation where we know that loss of bone density will occur, like SCI, we need an intervention that prevents or at least slows down the loss of bone density," Shields says. "This study provides evidence that there is a mechanical dose of load through muscle force that the skeleton can respond to that has an effect."

###

The study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.

In addition to Shields, the study team included Shauna Dudley-Javoroski, P.T., Ph.D., Shih-Chiao Tseng, P.T., Ph.D., Punam Saha, Ph.D., Manish Suneja, M.D., Chris Adams, M.D., Ph.D., Andy Littmann, P.T., Elizabeth Faidley, Michael Petrie, Brandon Campbell, Zhiyun Gao, and Colleen McHenry.

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa Health Care Media Relations, 200 Hawkins Drive, Room W319 GH, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1009

MEDIA CONTACT: Jennifer Brown, 319-356-7124, jennifer-l-brown@uiowa.edu

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High doses of 'load' slows loss of bone in spinal cord injury

Assessing and developing treatment for spinal cord injuries has long proved difficult for scientists hampered by a lack of available tools and imaging techniques. Now however, a team of Cornell researchers has developed a method to potentially circumvent this problem by surgically implanting a window into the spinal cord of a mouse, allowing for dynamic and long term imaging at a cellular level.

In an article published in the January issue of Nature Methods, Prof. Chris Schaffer, biomedical engineering, and Matthew Farrar grad designed and inserted a chamber into the backs of mice that enables researchers to view of the cellular interactions in spinal cord injury sites. Working alongside Prof. Joseph Fetcho, neurobiology and behavior, Schaffer and Farrar aimed at identifying ways that researchers could advance the quality of spinal cord injury treatment by developing an improved imaging procedure.

The previous method for observing cells after spinal cord injury was to perform multiple surgeries to image the damaged site. However, according to Farrar, multiple surgeries are harmful to the mice because researchers must repeatedly reopen the skin and risk causing inflammation, increasing the risk of infection and the growth of fibrotic tissue. This makes carrying out multiple surgeries a less than ideal practice.

“The goal here is to be able to gain a better understanding of disease dynamics and to create a platform for the robust evaluation of therapeutic strategies,” Schaffer said. “People have been limited in terms of the tools they had available to study spinal cord injury and to develop strategies that could help injured axons regrow and regain function.”

Axons are like the wires of the nervous system, carrying information between the brain and the rest of the body. The axons in the central nervous system do not spontaneously regenerate in adults. After spinal cord trauma,  the damaged ends of the axons degenerate from the injury site.

“In treating spinal cord injury, the first thing you have to do is to get the axons to stop dying back and start growing forward,” Farrar said.

Currently, researchers have two ways of assessing the efficacy of drug therapies designed to repair axonal regrowth after spinal cord injury, Schaffer said. The first is to evaluate behavioral differences between animals treated for spinal cord trauma and uninjured ones. The problem, according to Schaffer, is that the animals used in research respond well to drug therapy in general, so scientists can only observe minute differences.

The other technique is to use histology, or the study of microscopic anatomy of cells. Scientists take tissue samples from animals at different time points after a spinal cord injury. There are two problems with this technique, according to Schaffer: One, researchers cannot watch the same animal over time and examine its dynamic cellular behavior at the injury site. Second, researchers cannot watch for when the axons are growing forward.

“If you consider a bundle of axons in an injured spinal cord, some of them might be dying back, some of them might be growing forward, and some of them might not be injured at all,” Farrar said. “If all I show you is a single picture in time then you can’t know which ones are which and this makes it hard to pick out the overall effect of the drug.”

To solve this issue, Schaffer and Farrar developed a tool that enables imaging of the same axons in the same mouse over time, which allows researchers to determine if an axon is getting shorter or longer. This is crucial because some axons may at first, in response to a drug therapy, begin to grow forward, but with time recede back again, according to Farrar. If the axon is not monitored over time, then one might conclude that the drug was more effective than it really was Farrar said.

After designing the chamber, the team was to induced a very small spinal cord injury in the mice and tagged axons and blood vessels with fluorescent markers. This allowed Farrar and Schaffer to observe the superficially severed axons and their growth behavior.

“The idea that you are going to grow back every axon in someone that has spinal cord injury is probably a long way off. And you probably do not have to. The axons that are most likely to regenerate, I would think, are the ones that sort of most robustly remain in the lesion site. And now we have a way to find them using our chamber,” Schaffer said.

The research team also studied microglia, or the inflammatory cells, of the nervous system while studying of axon regrowth. Schaffer said this part of the experiment confirmed findings by other scientists that microglia can interfere with the ability of axons to grow through an injured region because microglia form what are known as glial scars. After cellular trauma, large numbers of inflammatory cells travel to the injury site, clean up debris and recruit other cells to lay down scar tissue. Some research suggests that scar tissue is not something that axons are able to grow through.

According to Schaffer, scientists disagree about how much inflammatory activity is good. While getting rid of cellular debris is crucial to cell functioning, too much of the microglia to clear the debris can form scar tissue through which axons cannot grow. Schaffer and Farrar’s chamber will allow scientists to better determine how to modulate the invasion of these inflammatory cells.

Schaffer and Farrar said that the next steps for scientists using the chamber they developed will be crucial. “This research was aimed at developing a procedure, an implant and an imaging strategy to be able to see spinal cord injury sites over an extended period,” Schaffer said. “But really that is just the beginning, because now we can begin to look how the milieu of things that are released in a spinal cord injury interacts with each other in a way that seems to favor axonal degeneration.”

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Chamber May Open Window for Treating Spine

Four finalists have been selected in a search to replace interim Dean of the College of Fine Arts Jim Linnell, who suffered a spinal cord injury in Mexico over winter break.

One finalist has already visited UNM’s campus, and three more will follow in the coming weeks.

A search committee formed last fall received numerous applications from around the country. The committee can’t release the total number until the search is complete.

Search Committee Chair and dean of School of Architecture and Planning Geraldine Forbes-Isais said the committee is looking for someone who wants to be at UNM and has high academic achievements.
“We searched for candidates that we felt were contemporary and forward-looking in their vision,” she said. “The type of leader that would be able to work with all of the constituencies of the college and move them forward, and someone who really wanted to be here at the University of New Mexico and saw it as a great place to build a great school and build their own career.”

Linnell announced last semester that he would be stepping down in June. After his spinal cord injury, Linnell was rushed to the UNM trauma center to undergo surgery on Dec. 29, after receiving initial medical care in Mexico, according to a statement from his family.

The statement said his surgery was successful and that he is in stable condition. Linnell will soon begin rehabilitation at a spinal injury clinic in Denver.

According to Forbes-Isais, the search process is on schedule. The committee is composed of administrators, alumni, faculty and a graduate students, most from the College of Fine Arts. She said she is pleased with the search committee’s focus and collaboration.

“I was lucky that the search committee was interested in spending the time to identify the best candidate, and they really did their homework,” Forbes-Isais said.

Judith Thorpe is a professor and head of the Art & Art History Department in the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut. Thorpe visited the UNM campus on Monday for a faculty and public forum.

Ronald Shields is a professor and chair of the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University. Shields will be at UNM for a faculty forum on Thursday from 9:45-10:45 a.m. in the SUB Mirage-Thunderbird room and a public forum from 3:30-5 p.m. in the same room.

Kymberly Pinder is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she served as graduate program head and department chair. Pinder will be at UNM for a faculty forum on March 7 from 9:45-10:45 a.m. in a location to be determined and a public forum from 3:30-5 p.m. in the SUB Acoma room.

Sanjit Sethi is director of the Center for Art and Public Life and the Barclay Simpson chair of community art at California College of the Arts. Sethi will be at UNM for a faculty forum on March 1 from 10:30-11:30 a.m. in the SUB Lobo room A and a public forum from 3-4:30 p.m. in Dane Smith Hall room 123.

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Candidates vie to replace injured fine arts dean

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

In hopes to find a cure for better and faster healing and to raise awareness of spinal cord injuries, Walking With Anthony (www.walkingwithanthony.org) is starting an intensive campaign to raise money for The CST Regeneration Project. Led by the esteemed team of Dr. Oswald Steward from the Reeve-Irvine Research Center and Harvard University’s Associate Professor of Neurology Zhigang He, The CST Regeneration Project provides groundbreaking findings and hope for those who are paralyzed due to injury to the spinal cord by focusing on axon and nerve renewal.

The University of California, Irvine’s Reeve-Irvine Research Center, headed by prestigious Dr. Oswald Steward, in collaboration with Harvard University's Associate Professor of Neurology Zhigang He, has fundamentally changed the history of curing paralysis from spinal cord injury (SCI). Through a revolutionary discovery involving the PTEN gene, researchers have regenerated nerves in the damaged spinal cord of mice responsible for movement and sensation in the body. The two doctors believe that these results can be duplicated on the human body.

Walking With Anthony is inspired by Anthony Purcell, who was paralyzed after a diving accident in 2010, but can now stand with the help of a walker. With about 12,000 people falling victim to SCI each year, it is the organization’s hope to increase SCI research and provide financial assistance to SCI victims. “Having seen the effects of spinal cord injury first-hand, I know how much this research and potential results would mean to the approximately 1.5 million people in the United States who are confined to a wheelchair,” said Walking With Anthony Founder Micki Purcell. “We want to raise the money needed for this research to move forward at a faster pace so that people can start taking advantage of its findings.”

“Dr. He and I are convinced that a major threshold has been crossed in our goal of regenerating connections in the injured spinal cord. We are working hard to translate the discoveries into a therapy that could restore motor function to people who have suffered spinal cord injuries. On behalf of the entire CST Regeneration Project team, we greatly appreciate the support from Walking with Anthony,” said Dr. Oswald Steward, Director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center.

Walking With Anthony, an organization dedicated to spinal cord injury rehabilitation, is proud to raise funds that will not only help fuel The CST Regeneration Project and its results, but will also provide a larger purpose to the charity’s overarching goals.

For more information about Walking With Anthony, please visit http://www.walkingwithanthony.org.

The Reeve-Irvine Research Center is THE premier research center in the world for studies of spinal cord injuries. For more information, please visit http://www.reeve.uci.edu.

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Walking With Anthony Launches National Campaign to Raise Awareness about Revolutionary Advancements in Healing Spinal ...

York, PA - Central York School District announced that Adam Taliaferro, a former PSU football standout who overcame a life-threatening spinal cord injury, will be the Keynote Speaker at the District's 6th Annual Diversity Celebration, which will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 21 at Central York Middle School.

Taliaferro broke his neck in 2000 during a routine helmet-to-helmet tackle in the final minutes of Penn State's game against Ohio State. He injured his spine so severely that doctors gave him a 3 percent chance of walking again. Taliaferro's family, friends and supporters -- including the late coach Joe Paterno -- inspired him to think positive and strive to beat the odds, which he did.

Today, he is a successful attorney with Duane Morris in New Jersey, the founder of a foundation that assists individuals with spinal injuries and an inspirational speaker who shares his story of positive thinking and resiliency with thousands across the nation each year.

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Adam Taliaferro to speak at Central York event

A HEIDELBERG doctor is trying to relieve some of the pain for people suffering spinal cord injury.

David Berlowitz has been awarded a $50,000 Institute of Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research development grant to develop an integrated research database for spinal cord injury patients.

Dr Berlowitz, who works at Austin Health’s Institute for Breathing and Sleep and the Victorian Respiratory Support Service, said the project monitored the patient’s injury management and lifestyle for the rest of their lives.

He said the project, which he had been working on for more than a decade, would allow doctors to learn about how people are coping with their injury.

“We know what happens when they get the injury, but not what happens over the next 50 to 60 years,” Dr Berlowitz said.

“The research is really about trying to best establish a quality and safety register so we can see how people are living with the injury.

“The system we are going to use will be internationally recognised.”

He said there were 100 new spinal cord injuries in Victoria every year, and he was aiming to have a pilot program up and running within the next 18 months.

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Heidelberg doctor researches spinal cord injury

23-01-2012 20:59 1.5 years after a C4/C5 Spinal Cord Injury left him paralyzed from the shoulders down, Chris Leeuw continues Physical Therapy with Bioness and Electrical stimulation. An electric current stimulates atrophied muscles when the brain cannot - potentially helping patients learn to walk.

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Bioness Therapy at Neuroworx; Spinal Cord Injury - Video

07-02-2012 13:15 walkthelinetoscirecovery.com

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Spinal cord injured client works with SCI trainers to strengthen core stability - Video

06-01-2012 14:10 Spinal cord injury treatment. http://www.projectwalk.org exists to provide an improved quality of life for people with spinal cord injuries through intense exercise-based recovery programs, education, support and encouragement.

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"Chad C.""spinal cord Injury treatment" "spinal cord injury" "spinal cord injury recovery" - Video

27-12-2011 11:44 Spinal cord injury treatment. http://www.projectwalk.org exists to provide an improved quality of life for people with spinal cord injuries through intense exercise-based recovery programs, education, support and encouragement.

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"Lori Hammond", "Project Walk Spinal Cord Injury Recovery" - Video

01-02-2012 16:34 Spinal cord injury treatment. http://www.projectwalk.org exists to provide an improved quality of life for people with spinal cord injuries through intense exercise-based recovery programs, education, support and encouragement.

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"Kyle Eade, "Project Walk Spinal Cord Injury Recovery" - Video

A BRIGHT man suffered a spinal cord injury that paralysed both his legs after being stabbed in the lower back during a fight between two families, the County Court at Wangaratta has heard.

Shannon Larry Orcher, 20, is on trial, accused of stabbing Daniel Robinson three times and his father Alan Robinson seven times, in the early hours of October 4, 2009.

Orcher’s lawyer says his client acted in self-defence in attacking the pair, while prosecutors insist the Eurobin man intentionally set out to seriously injure the two men.

A 13-person jury was empanelled for the trial yesterday morning and given an outline of the facts of the case by prosecutor David O’Doherty.

He told the court Orcher and his brother Cheyne Orcher had visited the Robinson home after they left the Alpine Hotel in Bright when it closed at 1am.

Orcher allegedly told a friend of the Robinsons, Mathew Walsh, he was going to “bash” Daniel Robinson and have sex with his sister, Jessica Robinson.

At 3am, the Robinson siblings had arrived at their Cobden Street home after their night out at the same hotel when Daniel Robinson said he heard footsteps coming down the driveway and the Orcher brothers yelling they were

going to kill him, rape his

sister and burn down the house.

Mr Robinson woke up his father and the pair said they went out in a car to find the Orchers “to talk to them and calm the situation down”.

But the court heard yesterday the Robinsons were met with aggression and verbal abuse when they met Shannon Orcher, his brother and another relative in the driveway of the Orcher brothers’ home.

Police said a fight broke out between the men, both inside and outside the house.

They allege Orcher stabbed Alan Robinson seven times in the back and shoulders in the bedroom of the house, before stomping on his face and choking him to the point that he started to lose consciousness.

Orcher is alleged to have then walked out of the house and stabbed Daniel Robinson in the lower back three times, causing immediate paralysis to both his legs.

Police say the accused then left the scene and went to Beau Orcher’s Coronation Avenue unit, where he hid the knife, took off his blood-stained shirt and washed blood off his arms.

He later showed to police the shirt and knife, which he had hidden under a mattress in a couch, and admitted to stabbing both Robinson men, although he said they were both inside his house at the time of the stabbing.

Orcher told police he “lost it” and “I didn’t mean to ... do so much but I tried to stop them”.

The court heard both Robinson men had been armed, the father with a piece of a broom handle and the son with a cricket bat but the Orcher men didn’t report receiving any injuries in the incident.

Orcher’s lawyer said his client injured the Robinson men “to stop them” — an act of self-defence.

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Dad, son injured in stabbing frenzy

A former Sweet Home High School athlete who nearly died after a college pole vaulting accident in 2007 is being treated for a serious spinal cord injury at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend.

Keegan Burnett, 27, who now lives in Albany, is paralyzed from the waist down after a night skiing accident at Hoodoo Ski Area on Jan. 28. He is the son of Rick and Alice Burnett and a 2002 Sweet Home graduate.

“Keegan was skiing Saturday night with friends and the accident occurred when he tried to make a jump,” his mother said. “He said he made the jump twice before.”

Doctors told the Burnetts that Keegan “folded himself in half and landed on his head.”

“It completely blew out his T12 vertebrae and ruptured the C4 and C5 vertebrae,” his mother said.

The accident happened about 9 p.m. and Keegan was taken to St. Charles Medical Center by ambulance.

He had surgery Sunday, his mother said, and doctors installed a “cage” around the T12 vertebrae and cleaned up the others.

“His spinal cord was not severed, but it was severely crushed,” Burnett said. “The doctor said it is highly unlikely that Keegan will ever be able to walk again. It’s a miracle that he’s alive.”

Burnett said doctors are especially concerned about a concussion Keegan suffered, and he had CAT scans to determine if there was any brain swelling every day for the first three or four days he was in the hospital.

Back in May 2007, Keegan suffered a traumatic head injury while pole vaulting for the Idaho State University Bengals track team during a meet in Utah. Coming down, he struck his head on concrete that had not been covered with a protective mat. A portion of his skull had to be removed due to swelling of his brain. Keegan was in the intensive care unit at McKay-Dee Hospital for weeks and lost more than 35 pounds.

“Because of the previous injury, Keegan reacts differently than other people and the severity of a concussion is much more severe,” his mother said.

After healing, Keegan completed a degree in human physiology from the University of Oregon in 2008.

“He recently applied to graduate schools in human physiology at the UO, Oregon State and Arizona,” Burnett said. “He just got a temporary job at Entek in Lebanon and had worked one day before the accident.”

Daily updates about Keegan can be found at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/keeganburnett.

Originally posted here:
Young athlete suffers second serious injury

29-01-2012 09:26 walkthelinetoscirecovery.com

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SCI client works with Therapist to recover function after spinal cord injury in Southfield Michigan - Video

01-02-2012 11:34 http://www.pressingontx.org - Pressing On client Billy N. on our Hammer Strength Incline Chest Press machine. Great job!

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Billy N. C-7/C-8 Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury - Video

18-01-2012 12:44 http://www.ucsf.edu Dogs with spinal cord injuries may soon benefit from an experimental drug being tested by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Texas A

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Saving Dogs with Spinal Cord Injuries - No Audio - Video

The car is crushed.

It challenged a semi-truck and lost. The driver barely survived.

"I woke up in neurological intensive care with a closed brain injury and lower spinal cord injury," Ryan Spencer said. "Doctors told me I may never walk again, let alone perform again."

Spencer is a magician. The accident happened as he was beginning his career.

"I spent the next year in physical and occupational therapy," Spencer said.

Spencer went through hardships.

The Cherokee Nation suffered hardships as well.

In 1838, close to 15,000 Cherokee Indians set off on the Trail of Tears. Men, women and children walked 1,000 miles in the middle of winter.

"How did they survive?" Freeman Owle asked. "What kind of medicine is necessary to survive something like that?"

ETSU's College of Public Health hosted its second annual event, "An evening of health, wellness and the arts," on Jan. 26. Mary B. Martin School of the Arts co-sponsored this year's event.

Spencer along with Owle, a Cherokee elder and historian, were the featured speakers.

"This is something that is so important for us to see where healthcare, science, the arts and wellness can come together," Anita DeAngelis, director of the Mary B. Martin School of the Arts, said.

Owle started the evening speaking of balance in one's life. Balance means being at peace with the earth and with yourself. Something he thinks the younger generation of Cherokee is losing.

"The younger generations are no longer learning the cures," Owle said. "They are no longer learning the ways."

The lack of balance is demonstrated in the way the different generations use medicine. Those Cherokee 60 or older use mostly natural medicines, the same medicines their ancestors used. People under 30 use modern medicine.

Owle sees this problem facing his people. He worries that balance is slowly disappearing.

"I think probably, within not too many years, the total amount of the culture will be lost," Owle said. "It's a sad thing."

The younger Cherokee struggle with the same problem other young people face — drugs. "We have a lot of kids that are OD'ing all the time," Owle said.

When a Cherokee teenager turns 18 they receive a check for about $4,000 a year. Drug dealers know this, so they give the users credit throughout the year. When the tribal payment is received, they usually sign it straight over to the drug dealer.

This causes great financial stress, especially for those with children.

"A lot of time these teenagers have babies already, and they have no money there for the child," Owle said. "So you find them hanging on a rope with a chair they've kicked out from under themselves."

Owle is distressed. The elders of the Cherokee nation are taking steps to keep their tradition alive. The future is bleak.

"It doesn't look good," Owle said. "We are going to try to teach them the language, but we cannot fight against that social need to become part of a gang or to become the TV image of a teenager. Sad. Pitiful."

Owle is followed by a short intermission. The crowd files out of the auditorium to view photographs taken by the Gold Humanism Honor Society. Dr. Randy Wykoff, dean of the College of Public Health, believes the arts are essential to wellness.

"We put the arts aside, thinking oh that's not important," Wykoff said. "What we have found is that the arts are a part of a person and it is essential to wellness."

The voice of students was also listened too.

"It was a collaborative effort," Jeremy Pickell, president of the GHHS, said. "Dr. Wykoff and I talked for six or seven months, tossing ideas back and forth."

After intermission, everyone heads back to their seats. As the lights dim, Spencer walks out onto the stage.

While rehabbing from his car wreck, Spencer realized something. Rehab was boring.

"When you're a long-term patient and they're having you do traditional therapeutic exercises that really have no point to them that you see, it's very hard to stay motivated to do those things," Spencer said. "So when I made it through my therapy I went to my director of rehab and said, ‘There's got to be a better way to do this. There's nothing about this that's fun.'"

So Spencer had an idea. He wanted to use magic as a way to help the therapeutic process.

See the original post here:
Spencer talks benefits of magic on therapy

29-01-2012 09:22 walkthelinetoscirecovery.com

Read more:
Paraplegic Spinal cord injury survivor Walks in Rifton Pacer at SCI recovery facility - Video

25-01-2012 18:17 Spinal cord injury treatment. http://www.projectwalk.org exists to provide an improved quality of life for people with spinal cord injuries through intense exercise-based recovery programs, education, support and encouragement.

Read the original:
"Russ Bennett", "Project Walk Spinal Cord Injury Recovery" - Video

COLUMBUS,
Ohio (AP) — A spotted leopard that was among six
creatures kept at an Ohio zoo after an exotic animal escape was
euthanized after it was hit by a lowering door between two
enclosures and suffered a severe spinal cord injury, officials said
Monday.

The male leopard had been cared for at the Columbus zoo under a
state-issued quarantine order along with two other
leopards, two primates and a bear. Their owner committed
suicide in October after releasing dozens of tigers, bears and
other animals that were subsequently killed by authorities near
Zanesville.

A keeper was moving the leopard between enclosures Sunday
morning for routine feeding and cleaning when the animal
unexpectedly reversed course as a door was being lowered, and
it was struck on the neck, the zoo and the Ohio Department of
Agriculture said. A zoo veterinarian tried to use chest
compressions to restart the unresponsive animal's heart.

The state veterinarian was on-site and decided to euthanize the
cat after further examination revealed its spinal cord had been
irreversibly damaged and it could not breathe on its own,
officials said.

An attorney for the owner's widow, Marian Thompson, said Monday he was
withholding comment until they learn more about what happened.
Thompson has appealed the quarantine order and requested a
hearing on the matter, but no date has been set.

Thompson sought to reclaim the surviving animals in late
October, but the Department of Agriculture ordered they
be kept in quarantine. Ohio law allows the agriculture director
to quarantine animals while investigating reports of
potentially dangerous diseases.

Officials said they were concerned about reports that the
animals lived in unsanitary conditions where they could be
exposed to disease. The order prevents the zoo from releasing
the animals until it's clear they're free of dangerous
diseases, and it sets no deadline for medical testing to
confirm that.

The state said the leopard that was euthanized had a congenital
defect that weakened its spine and might have affected the
severity of its injury. Radiographs before and after death
showed malformed vertebrae in its neck, and the leopard also
had old injuries that didn't properly heal, including broken
back and tail bones, officials said.

A necropsy was performed, but the results were expected to take
weeks.

The Department of Agriculture would dispose of the leopard's
remains for biological safety reasons, spokeswoman Erica
Pitchford said.

More:
Ohio euthanizes leopard kept after exotics escape

23-01-2012 00:02 By far the best video I will ever upload!!! On August 13th, 2011, Rob became a quadriplegic after breaking his neck in a diving accident. On January 22, 2012 Rob took his first steps! These are them! Those looking for inspiration will find it here; Rob had been told by a number of doctors that he would never walk again. NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER GIVE IN, TRIUMPH!!

Read the rest here:
Rob Walking - 5 months after suffering a C6 Spinal Cord Injury - Video

Here are some of the latest health and medical news
developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

FDA Approves New Drug for Type 2
Diabetes

Bydureon (exenatide extended release), Amylin Pharmaceuticals'
long-acting version of the diabetes drug Byetta, has been
approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The once-weekly injection will include a label warning that the
drug caused certain thyroid tumors in rats, the Dow
Jones news service reported. It's not known whether the
drug causes such tumors in people, the label warning says. But
the drug shouldn't be used by people with a family history of
medullary thyroid carcinoma (a form of cancer), the warning
continues.

Twice in 2010, the FDA declined approval of Bydureon,
requesting additional studies and clinical information, Dow
Jones reported.

Bydureon is a "glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor," a
class of medications that helps the body produce more insulin,
which helps regulate blood sugar.

-----

Erin Brockovich Takes on High
School Girls' Mystery Illness

The environmental activist Erin Brockovich says she's
investigating the case of more than a dozen teen girls at an
upstate New York high school with tics and involuntary verbal
outbursts.

They mystery illness among the girls at Le Roy high school
began several months ago. Extensive testing of the school
grounds failed to detect any signs of infectious disease or
toxins, msnbc.com reported.

Dr. Laszlo Mechtler, a neurologist who has seen and is treating
10 of the girls, had diagnosed them with a rare condition
called mass psychogenic illness, more commonly known as mass
hysteria.

He noted that while the girls' symptoms may be psychological in
origin, that doesn't mean they aren't real, msnbc.com
reported.

------

H1N1 'Swine' Flu Cases Increase
in Mexico

There's agreement about an increased number of H1N1 swine flu
and other flu cases in Mexico this season, but while newspapers
are warning of a worrisome rise in cases, federal and state
officials say the number of cases is within the normal range
and there is no cause for alarm.

However, confusing figures about flu cases are listed on the
Mexican health ministry's website and it hasn't specified the
rise in cases, the Associated Press reported.

There are also conflicting reports about screening measures
being implemented in schools to check for the H1N1 virus, which
is now considered a seasonal flu. The federal education
ministry said Wednesday that screening measures were being
implemented in all elementary schools, but later said
screenings are being conducted only at schools where children
exhibit symptoms.

Mexico is seeing more cases of H1N1 flu this season, while the
United States is seeing more cases of a strain called H3N2,
according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. This year's seasonal flu vaccine contains
antibodies for both strains.

"We are not aware of any unusual changes in the virus in Mexico
that would be concerning," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said in an
email to the AP.

-----

Spinal Cord Injury Treatment
Tested on Dogs

Researchers are using dogs to test an experimental drug to
treat spinal cord injuries. If it's effective, it could lead to
human treatments.

The U.S. Department of Defense-funded study will test the drug
GM6001 in dachshunds and other long-bodied dogs with spinal
cord injuries to see if it will help them walk again, ABC
News reported.

The drug blocks an enzyme that promotes damage after a spinal
cord injury.

"After you have a spinal cord injury, the deficits you see are
not just a consequence of the initial injury, but rather events
that occur after the injury," study co-investigator Linda
Noble-Haeusslein told ABC News. "These events are a
little more delayed in onset, so we have the possibility of
preventing them."

Read more:
Health Highlights: Jan. 27, 2012