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Brain Cells From Adults Repair Spinal Cord Injury in Mice
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 Cells Allowed Mice To Walk Within Two Weeks of Injury
Scientists from Canada have found that spinal cord paralysis in rats can be eased / repaired by transplanting brain cells taken from the adult mouse. It may be possible to take brain cells from patients with spinal cord injuries and then transplanting them back into themselves as a treatment. Earlier studies have shown improvement in paralyzed lab animals with transplanted embryonic stem cells. The new research is important because the cells were taken from adult animals rather then embryos. Also, the positive effects were produced even two weeks after the injury.
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Dana Reeve Remembered
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 Senator John Kerry
"Teresa and I loved them both, and we are deeply saddened by Dana's passing. She was a steadfast partner to her husband, a loving mother, a talented artist, and an amazing caregiver who showed incredible grace fighting for her husband and then for her own life."
Robin Williams "The brightest light has gone out. We will forever celebrate her loving spirit."
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Dana Reeve Leaves Behind a Rich Legacy
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While Dana Reeve's death was a tremendous loss for all of those who have been touched by her story, perhaps nowhere will the loss be more keenly felt than in the offices and boardroom of the Christopher Reeve Foundation. Here, for over a decade, Dana Reeve was both a friend and a colleague; actively involved in the Foundation's work from fundraising, to lobbying, to conceiving ambitious new ways to help make a real difference in the lives of those living with paralysis.
This is the story of her work with the Foundation over the past decade, and the immense legacy she has left.
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Snowboarder's recovery subject of Emmy-winning film
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 BRECKENRIDGE - Four years ago, Breckenridge competitive snowboarder Matt Wyffels was involved in a horrific snowboarding accident that left him completely paralyzed from the waist down. Doctors told him that he would live the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair.
Just recently, that same wheelchair was auctioned off on eBay. Thanks to a new physical therapy regimen, the Sit Tall Stand Tall program, Wyffels has not only gotten rid of his wheelchair, but is walking with only the aid of leg braces, which he hopes to shed as well sometime in the near future.
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Scotland gets landmark housing project for people with spinal injuries
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 The heads of two charitable organisations have come together to mark the start of a housing project to help people from across Scotland build new lives after spinal cord injury.
Margaret Blackwood Housing Association and ASPIRE - the Association for Spinal Injury Research Rehabilitation and Reintegration - will work together to provide suitably adapted housing and support that will aid recovery from the trauma resulting from spinal cord injury.
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Focus On Spinal Cord Injury And Prosthetics
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The current issue of the Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development (JRRD Vol. 42) includes eight articles on spinal cord injury--addressing topics such as bone mineral density, women's sexuality, and chronic pain--and three articles on prosthetics research. Other articles in this issue focus on robotic therapy for stroke rehabilitation, the diabetic foot, and vocational rehabilitation for patients with schizophrenia. Full-text articles are available, free, online at http://www.rehab.research.va.gov/.
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Spinal-cord injury research shows promise
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For years, scientists have been trying to make injured spinal cords grow back, with limited success. Lying awake in bed one night, University of Pennsylvania neurobiologist Douglas Smith came up with an offbeat alternative: Instead of trying to regrow the damaged nerves, how about taking nerve cells from elsewhere in the body and getting them to stretch? After all, he reasoned, a similar process must occur when whales and giraffes grow their spinal cords to tremendous lengths. So far, it's working. Smith and his University of Pennsylvania colleagues have taken clumps of non-essential nerve-cell bodies from rats, stretched them very slowly -- a millimeter or two a day, in specially constructed stretching boxes -- and successfully implanted them into other rats with injured spinal cords.
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JRRD Focuses On Issues Such As Spinal Cord Injury and Prosthetics
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The current issue of the Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development (JRRD) mainly analyses articles related to spinal cord injury, bone mineral density, women's sexuality, chronic pain and prosthetics research.
Under the title that dealt with veterans who reported chronic pain associated with spinal cord injury the author of the study said that 76 % of participants (spinal cord injury) reported chronic pain. He inquired about their pain frequency, duration, intensity, exacerbating factors, and effects on daily activities. The majority of the chronic pain components occurred daily and lasted most of the day.
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Illinois woman undergoes experimental stem-cell surgery in Portugal
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 Within weeks of experimental stem-cell surgery Oct. 29 in Portugal, Jacki Rabon - paralyzed from the waist down after an auto accident two years ago - was standing and walking in Detroit.
But metal braces and an aggressive rehabilitation program in Michigan, not restoration of sensation in her legs, were what helped the 18-year-old take steps she hadn't attempted since a rollover accident in August 2003.
It's too soon to know whether the $44,000 surgery, in which tissue from her nose was transplanted into the damaged section of her spinal cord, will bring back any feeling or control for Rabon, a former standout high school volleyball player from Waverly, Ill., a rural town of 1,300 people.
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Virtual reality helps spinal cord patients gain confidence
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 Spinal injury patient Bob Jones may be paralyzed and in a wheelchair, but he won't sit still for long. He uses virtual reality technology to help him with his injury.
"This gives you an idea of what you're gonna' be running into on the outside of the building," Jones said. It's rehabilitation that looks more like a video game. "It's fun, but a little scary," Jones said.
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March 2006
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