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» The Spinal Cord Injury Zone - News
07/17/2008 Allen Institute will give preview of spinal-cord atlas
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is releasing the first data from
a project to map the spinal cord. The spinal-cord atlas will provide a
boost to research on disorders that attack the nervous system and also
will help efforts to treat, and perhaps repair, spinal-cord injuries.When Jane Roskams started studying spinal-cord injuries, she kept
coming across cells she couldn't identify. Other experts were often
stumped, too.
"I quickly found out what a black box the spinal cord is," said the
University of British Columbia (UBC) scientist. "People don't even know
what half the cells are, let alone what they do."
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07/15/2008 Christopher Reeve - A true superhero
2008 has been a year marred by injuries to horses and people riding them.When I see a rider go down, it reminds me of the accident that paralyzed and ultimately killed Christopher Reeve. Like
Rock Hudson for AIDS and Lou Gehrig for ALS, Reeve put a famous and
courageous face on an ailment. Because of Reeve, money and resources
have been devoted to possible cures for spinal cord injuries.
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07/14/2008 3 movies delve into living with paralysis
The Northwest Indiana Spinal Cord Injury Group is hoping to educate
people about life in a wheelchair by sponsoring a series of three films.The films, said group founder Joe White, of Valparaiso, illustrate various aspects of spinal cord injury, recovery and research."They
moved me, and they are great films. I feel the need to share them,"
White said. "It is also a way for me and the group to thank the
community for all the support for the walk."
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07/14/2008 Everett center of attention at annual football camp
Kevin Everett walked toward the football field at Memorial High School and paused for yet another photograph Monday.
Sheri Richmond, a Port Arthur resident who attended Lincoln High
School with Everett's mother, Pat, held up a cell phone and snapped a
shot.
"I hadn't seen him since right after he finished high school," said
the 46-year-old Richmond, who introduced herself as his mother's old
classmate. "I wanted to come here and see him for myself."
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07/14/2008 Lab boost for spinal injury rehab
A chemical used by bacteria to invade other cells may boost the
chance of successful rehabilitation from spinal and brain injury,
research suggests.
A team from the Centre for Brain Repair in Cambridge treated rats with the enzyme chondroitinase.
They found the treatment increased the length of time that the nervous system was responsive to rehab.
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» The Spinal Cord Injury Zone - Info
06/30/2008 A BACTERIAL PARTNERSHIP
Basically, antibiotic development became the cornerstone in the establishment of the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA). Like the hero in the Oscar-nominated movie Atonement, my great-uncle died due to infection from a wound he sustained charging a German machine-gun nest in World War I. If antibiotics had been available, he would have survived, and perhaps I would have met him.A decade later, future Nobel Laureate Alexander Fleming observed that bacterial growth was inhibited by a penicillin-generating mold. As a result of his discovery and the ensuing large-scale production of penicillin catalyzed by World War II's bloodshed, many soldiers wounded later in this war were able to live, including PVA founders. Since then, scientists have developed numerous antibiotics, which have greatly increased life expectancy after SCI.
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06/26/2008 Bladder Cancer In Spinal Cord Injury Patients
Finally, University of California at Irvine investigators
retrospectively evaluated 32/1319 (2.4%) SCI patients who developed
bladder cancer that was detected a mean of 34 years (range 16-62)
following SCI.
> 50% of these patients had not been managed with an indwelling
Foley catheter. Current recommendation is surveillance cystoscopy every
10 years in SCI patients with indwelling catheters, but based on this
study, consideration of more diligent screening in all SCI patients
regardless of bladder management technique, was urged by the authors.
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06/04/2008 New report shows locomotor training restores walking function in child with spinal cord injury
Central nervous system may be retrained, report led by physical therapist showsA new report shows that a non-ambulatory (unable to walk or stand)
child with a cervical spinal cord injury was able to restore basic
walking function after intensive locomotor training. The case study,
published in Physical Therapy (May 2008), the scientific journal of the
American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), evaluated the effects of
locomotor training in a 4 ½ year-old-boy, who had no ability to
walk following a gunshot wound sixteen months earlier.
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05/03/2008 Varied therapies for spinal cord injury
There is no cure for a spinal cord injury, but much headway has been
made in clinical research that could lead to one. Other therapies have
helped to restore some function in spinal cord injured patients. A look
at some efforts:Cell-based therapies hold the potential
for replacing cells and restoring function lost to disease or injury.
Among those being developed to help treat spinal cord injuriesGene therapy carries the potential to provide the injured spinal cord
with the specific gene products, or proteins, that it needs to promote
functional recovery. Gene therapy is not a current treatment for spinal
cord injuries but is being studied with animal models of spinal cord
injury.
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04/28/2008 Quick Decompression Aids Spinal Injury Recovery
Patients having
decompression surgery within 24 hours of a cervical spinal cord injury may
have a better outcome than those who have the procedure later, according
to new research.Surgical decompression of the spinal cord involves the removal of various tissue or bone fragments that are being squeezed and comprising the spinal cord. While commonly done after an injury occurs, the timing of the procedure varies widely.
The study looked at 170 patients with cervical spinal cord injuries,
graded as A (most several neurological involvement) to D (least severe),
who underwent decompression surgery.
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» The Spinal Cord Injury Zone - Questions
09/22/2007 What is the spinal cord?
This may seem to be silly question but, until people get spinal cord
injury or know somebody who is, most pay little attention to their
spinal cords. Most people don’t know the different parts of the
spinal cord, what each part does, and how the spinal cord transmits
sensory and motor information. Many think that the spinal cord conducts
information like a telephone wire and the spinal cord can be fixed by
reconnecting it. Some people mistakenly believe that the spinal cord is
the vertebral column. While almost everybody knows that spinal cord
injury causes paralysis, many are not aware that the spinal cord also
controls the bladder and bowel, sexual function, blood pressure, skin
blood flow, sweating, and temperature regulation.
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07/10/2007 What are the effects of SCI?
The effects of SCI depend on the type of
injury and the level of the injury. SCI can be divided into two types
of injury - complete and incomplete. A complete injury means that there
is no function below the level of the injury; no sensation and no
voluntary movement. Both sides of the body are equally affected. An
incomplete injury means that there is some functioning below the
primary level of the injury. A person with an incomplete injury may be
able to move one limb more than another, may be able to feel parts of
the body that cannot be moved, or may have more functioning on one side
of the body than the other. With the advances in acute treatment of
SCI, incomplete injuries are becoming more common.
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06/05/2007 What is Spinal Cord Injury?
Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is damage to the spinal
cord that results in a loss of function such as mobility or feeling.
Frequent causes of damage are trauma (car accident, gunshot,
falls, etc.) or disease (polio, spina bifida, Friedreich's Ataxia,
etc.). The spinal cord does not have to be severed in order for a loss
of functioning to occur. In fact, in most people with SCI, the spinal
cord is intact, but the damage to it results in loss of functioning.
SCI is very different from back injuries such as ruptured disks, spinal
stenosis or pinched nerves.
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05/20/2007 What is the spinal cord and the vertebra?
The spinal cord is about 18 inches long and
extends from the base of the brain, down the middle of the back, to
about the waist. The nerves that lie within the spinal cord are upper
motor neurons (UMNs) and their function is to carry the messages back
and forth from the brain to the spinal nerves along the spinal tract.
The spinal nerves that branch out from the spinal cord to the other
parts of the body are called lower motor neurons (LMNs). These spinal
nerves exit and enter at each vertebral level and communicate with
specific areas of the body. The sensory portions of the LMN carry
messages about sensation from the skin and other body parts and organs
to the brain. The motor portions of the LMN send messages from the
brain to the various body parts to initiate actions such as muscle
movement.
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02/27/2007 Why is my spinal cord important?
Your Spinal Cord is important because without a spinal cord your brain and your body couldn't communicate with each other. The spinal cord is the pathway for impulses
from the body to the brain, and from the brain
to the body. These impulses are different signals our brain sends and receives from our bodies.
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What is Spinal Cord Injury?
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Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is damage to the spinal
cord that results in a loss of function such as mobility or feeling.
Frequent causes of damage are trauma (car accident, gunshot, falls,
etc.) or disease (polio, spina bifida, Friedreich's Ataxia, etc.). The
spinal cord does not have to be severed in order for a loss of
functioning to occur. In fact, in most people with SCI, the spinal cord
is intact, but the damage to it results in loss of functioning. SCI is
very different from back injuries such as ruptured disks, spinal
stenosis or pinched nerves.
A person can "break their back or
neck" yet not sustain a spinal cord injury if only the bones around the
spinal cord (the vertebrae) are damaged, but the spinal cord is not
affected. In these situations, the individual may not experience
paralysis after the bones are stabilized.
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Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury
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The term "spinal cord injury" refers to any injury of the neural (pertaining to nerves) elements within the spinal canal. 
SCI can occur from either trauma or disease to the vertebral column or the spinal cord itself. Most spinal cord injuries are the result of trauma to the vertebral column. These injuries can affect the spinal cord's ability to send and receive messages from the brain to the body systems that control sensory, motor, and autonomic function below the level of injury. Depending on the location and severity of the injury, the body can be affected in a myriad of ways. Typically, the nerves above the injury site continue to function as they always have and the nerves below the site do not.
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