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New Drug Application Helps Suppress Pain Caused By SCI Injuries
A spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the most debilitating injuries you can have. Not only can it cause nerve damage, immobility and psychological problems, it can also result in serious amounts of physical pain.
The majority of SCI victims, nearly 90 percent overall, is known to suffer from severe chronic pain. This pain is constant and can last months, years, or indefinitely if not treated. Although this pain may be different for each victim, depending on their specific injury, new research hypothesizes that it all stems from the same place: toxins in the brain. The same research, also proposes that these toxins can be removed, causing much needed pain suppression for SCI victims.
Recent discoveries suggest that SCI victims have higher levels of the neurotoxin acrolein in their brains. Acrolein, produced when nerve cells are damaged, creates biochemical reactions within the brain, enhancing pain receptors and causing the injury to worsen. However, researchers at the University of Indiana School of Medicine, along with accredited professors and scientists from Purdue, have recently discovered that the FDA-approved hypertension drug hydralazine helps reduce the acrolein levels in laboratory rats. They also showed that the reactions to pain stimuli was also significantly reduced with the addition of the drug.
Classifying Your Injuries To Decrease SCI Stress
When you suffer from a spinal cord injury (SCI), your entire life changes. In a blink of an eye, your mobility, independence, and future become uncertain. In addition to the physical process of recovery, you also have a million other worries weighing on your mind. This weight can become so overwhelming that nearly 37 percent of SCI victims suffer from severe depression. This is why it's extremely important to try to decrease the external concerns caused by your SCI.
An easy way to help lessen the stress is to focus on individual problems, instead of obsessively worrying about all of them at once. A good starting point is to place each concern under one of three categories: physical, mental, and monetary.
- Physical. Worries pertaining to limitations caused by the injury (e.g., mobility and independence)
- Mental. How the injury affects how you feel about yourself or about the future
- Monetary. Rehabilitation, hospital, and medication costs, and lost wages because of your temporary or enduing disability
Hypoxia May Help Walking Endurance In Spinal Cord Injury Victims
Are you a victim of a spinal cord injury (SCI) that has severely affected your ability to walk? Are you afraid that you'll never be able to take your favorite stroll around Rock Creek Park or the Smithsonian Sculpture Garden again? A promising new Emory University study involving regulated oxygen levels may help ease your mind and get you one step closer to your favorite park.
The study is based on the notion that over half of all spinal injuries still leave neural pathways intact, allowing them to strengthen and increase a victim's ability to walk longer distances. So far, the new study has yielded positive results for victims who were able to take one unassisted step prior to treatment.
The study required participants to breathe regulated air 40 minutes a day for five days. During these 40 minutes, 90 seconds of low-oxygenated (hypoxic) air was alternated with 60 seconds of normal air. Two weeks later, half of the participants were given the same treatment again; the other half, the control group, received normally oxygenated air. The participants' walking endurances were also periodically tested throughout the two-week process to detect and record any noticeable changes.
Spinal Cord Rehabilitation Through Virtual Recreation
When you suffer a spinal cord injury (SCI), many aspects of your life are affected. When you're unable to communicate to the people around you, participate in group projects, or engage in recreational activities, depression, anxiety and loneliness can take their toll.
Your mind needs a release or distraction from the stresses of your injury in order to balance your emotions. Unfortunately, this release can be hard to come by for SCI victims, due to certain injury restraints. However, those living in Washington D.C. and Maryland can now experience this release during rehabilitation sessions by using a hands-on recreational sailing simulator.
This new therapeutic technique, established by the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, puts the participant in a virtual cockpit and allows him to navigate the "vessel" around a virtual course. The participant is given the same set up and control as if he were actually sailing on open waters. He then must assess the situation and make the necessary decisions to run the course. The simulator also allows for multiple people to participate at the same time. This strengthens the sensation of participating in a group recreational activity that may not otherwise have been possible.
Treatment, Rehab And Help: Necessities For D.C. Brain Injury Victims
Your brain is one of the most important organs in your body. It allows you to take your nightly walk around Dupont Circle, decide if you'd rather eat at Sweet Peas or Raku, and basically tells your body what to do and when. Unfortunately-despite the protection of your skull-the brain is one of the organs most susceptible to damage.
Any type of brain injury, be it small or traumatic, has the potential to cause severe damage to your body. This is why it is extremely important to not only seek medical attention with all head injuries, but also to receive the proper treatment and rehabilitation your brain needs to recover.
The human brain is made up of several sections that directly regulate your body. If you suffered a head injury, any one of them could be affected. These sections and their functions include:
Outer Brain (Cerebrum)
- Frontal Lobe – accountable for reasoning, speech, movement, emotions
- Parietal Lobe – movement
- Occipital Lobe – visual processing and identification
Neuro-Bladder Device May Aid In Spinal Cord Injury
Incontinence is one of the many frustrating and embarrassing effects of severe spinal cord injuries.
Currently, there are only two ways to help prevent incontinence: implants that require the bladder nerves to be severed, or the use of painful and unreliable catheters. Both of these alternatives are known to cause inconvenient side effects. However, a new study involving a prosthetic neuro-bladder device may help in spinal cord injury (SCI) bladder restraint, without painful or inconvenient side effects.
The device, created and currently being analyzed by James Fawcett of the University of Cambridge, allows an implant to sense when the bladder is full and keep it from automatically emptying itself. The process takes advantage of tiny nerves in the bladder, called dorsal rootlets, hat send signals to the spine (and then to the brain) telling it when the bladder is full. As these nerves are often damaged when the spinal cord is injured, the device intercepts and records these signals before they reach the damaged spinal cord.
$10 Million Donated To Treat Pediatric Spinal Cord Injuries
Spinal cord injuries are one of the worst types of injury a person can suffer. However, the psychological and physiological ramifications are even more traumatizing if you're a child.
Currently, there are over 100,000 children in the U.S., approximately 1,500 in Virginia alone, living with some sort of spinal cord injury (SCI). This is why funding for pediatric SCI research has become increasingly important in order to help find better treatments and rehabilitation techniques for SCI victims in general, but especially for pediatric victims.
The Kosair Charity, based in Kentucky and Indiana, realizes how important this research is, and therefore donated $7.3 million to the University of Louisiana in support of toward Dr. (M.D.) Andrea Behrman's pediatric SCI research. Along with Kosair's generous gift, the University itself donated an additional $2.3 million. This makes a grand total of $10 million for the further study and implementation of Dr. Behrman's hands-on rehabilitation study.
Do You Need a Virginia Car Accident Lawyer to Handle Your Claim?
When a water pipe breaks in the wall, unless you are adept at plumbing repairs, you would call a professional to fix the problem. If your faucet is simply leaking, you may be able to make the repair yourself. In a similar way, when you are involved in a car accident in Virginia, are you prepared to handle the claim on your own? There are times when you do and times when you do not need to consult an attorney. This article serves to answer some of those questions.
Determining If You Need An Attorney
As with the plumbing issues, you may know what you need to do but you do not have the experience or knowledge necessary to be able to accomplish it. If you are trying to decide if you need an attorney for your car accident claim in Virginia, keep in mind that unless you are a lawyer, you may not have the training or knowledge to handle the case. You risk ending up with a poor result, especially if you are up against someone that knows what they are doing.
When You May Not Need An Attorney
The Painful Truth About Cancer Misdiagnosis
Every year at your physical exam, mammogram, or colonoscopy, you wait anxiously for the results, hoping to hear the word negative. When the opposite happens and the doctor utters the word positive, your life changes forever.
But then your doctor tells you that it's been positive for awhile. You listen while he tells you of the signs, the things he told you not to worry about before. He should have caught it much earlier, and prevented the drastic steps you now need to take.
Reasons Patients Are Misdiagnosed
Cancer misdiagnosis is a particularly harmful form of medical malpractice in Virginia. Patients are misdiagnosed for a number of reasons, most commonly:
- When a malignant tumor is diagnosed as non-cancerous.
- Improper lab testing.
- Mistaken interpretation of the pathology report.
- Failure to make a referral to a specialist or second physician.
- Failure to perform adequate follow-up testing.
Does Your Child Deserve Compensation For Injuries Sustained At Birth?
Birthing complications are tragically common in the United States. However, as long as your doctor monitors the situation and acts accordingly, these complications shouldn't have an effect on your child. On the other hand, if your doctor doesn't take appropriate action when it's needed, your child could suffer severe birth injuries and be entitled to compensation.
Your child's wellbeing is one of the most important things in your life. Why should you have to worry if his injuries were caused by medical carelessness? You deserve to know exactly what happened during your pregnancy and your delivery as well as exactly what caused your child's injury.
Some injuries such as birth defects and certain neurological problems cannot legally be inferred as medical negligence. However, if your child was in fetal distress during your delivery and now has signs of cerebral palsy, brain damage, or motor function problems, this may be a good indication of medical negligence.
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703-591-0067
From our office in Fairfax, Shevlin Smith, P.C. serves clients throughout Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., including Alexandria, Annandale, Arlington, Ashburn, Burke, Centreville, Dale City, Fair Oaks, Leesburg, Manassas, McLean, Oakton, Reston, Springfield, and Woodbridge, as well as Fairfax County, Arlington County, Fauquier County, Loudoun County, and Prince William County.
Results listed are not a guarantee or indication of future case results.
