Category Archives: Spinal Cord Injury Treatment

Brachial plexus injuries are caused by excessive stretching, tearing, or other trauma to a network of nerves from the spine to the shoulder, arm and hand. Brachial plexus spinal cord injuries can occur in a baby during a difficult delivery. Approximately three out of 1,000 infants are born with brachial plexus or similar nerve or spinal cord injuries each year. Most children suffering from brachial plexus injury will heal with little or no treatment, but 25 percent of birth injury cases will result in permanent damage. This can lead to a lifetime of spinal cord injuries including muscle contractions and permanent weakness or paralysis of the arm. Treatment of a childs brachial plexus injury may include physical or occupational therapy and sometimes surgery, which can be expensive. Parents raising a child with brachial plexus or other spinal cord injuries sustained during delivery should not be left to bear the cost alone. Attorneyswho focus on medical malpractice birth injuries can assist parents seeking compensation for medical expenses relating to birth injuries. More here: Brachial Plexus and Spinal Cord Injuries … Continue reading →

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 28-Oct-2014 Contact: Kim Deasy kim.deasy@rhul.ac.uk 01-784-443-967 Royal Holloway, University of London @RoyalHolloway Dr Rafael Yez-Muoz, from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London, is leading a team of researchers working to develop a novel treatment for spinal cord injury - which leaves sufferers with devastating, life-long effects including paralysis. Dr Yez-Muoz, together with colleagues from King's College London, Cambridge University, and the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience has received more than 300,000 from the International Spinal Research Trust (ISRT) for the pioneering CHASE-IT project. Spinal cord injury (SCI) leads to the permanent loss of bodily functions, often with a lifetime of high dependence care and incalculable physical and emotional costs to the patient and their family. More than 2.5 million people are affected by SCI worldwide and with more than 130,000 new cases each year and patients now living near full life expectancy, SCI represents a significant and increasing problem to health care and society. Dr Yez-Muoz said: "There are currently no therapies for SCI, with current treatment options limited to minimising secondary complications and maximising residual function so we are very excited to contribute our expertise and be involved with this excellent consortium … Continue reading →

London, Oct 26: A 38-year-old man who was paralysed from the chest down following a knife attack can now walk using a frame, following a pioneering cell transplantation treatment by surgeons in Poland. The technique involved using specialist cells from the nose, called olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs), in the spinal cord. These allow the nerve cells that give us a sense of smell to grow back when they are damaged. The patient, Darek Fidyka, was paralysed after suffering stab wounds to the back in 2010, leaving an 8mm gap in his spinal cord. He described the ability to walk again using a frame as an incredible feeling, saying when you cant feel almost half your body, you are helpless, but when it starts coming back its as if you were born again. Its amazing to see how regeneration of the spinal cord, something that was thought impossible for many years, is becoming a reality, said Dr Pawel Tabakow, consultant neurosurgeon at Wroclaw University Hospital, Poland. Professor Geoff Raisman, Chair of Neural Regeneration at the University College London (UCL) Institute of Neurology, first discovered OECs in 1985 and successfully showed that they could be used to treat spinal injuries in rats … Continue reading →

FIRST STEPS: Darek Fidyka walks with the aid of leg-braces and a walking frame at the Akron Neuro-Rehabilitation Center in Wroclaw, Poland. Photo: AFP A paralysed man has begun to walk again after pioneering surgery injected cells from his nasal cavity into his spine. How was this possible - and what does it mean for others with spinal injury? Kate Hagan stitches together the evidence. Darek Fidyka sounds as though he has been through a lot. How did he lose his ability to walk? A Bulgarian firefighter, Mr Fidyka's spinal cord was severed after he was repeatedly stabbed in the back during a knife attack in 2010. It left the 40-year-old paralysed from the chest down. Despite two years of intensive physiotherapy he had showed no sign of recovery. Why did scientists think he might be able to walk again? Scientists have long recognised the potential of particular cells in the olfactory bulb, at the top of the nasal cavity, to stimulate growth of nerve fibres. Called olfactory ensheathing cells, they act as pathway cells to enable nerve fibres in the olfactory system to be constantly renewed throughout a person's life, preserving the senses of smell and taste. The role … Continue reading →

FIRST STEPS: Darek Fidyka walks with the aid of leg-braces and a walking frame at the Akron Neuro-Rehabilitation Center in Wroclaw, Poland. Photo: AFP A paralysed man has begun to walk again after pioneering surgery injected cells from his nasal cavity into his spine. How was this possible - and what does it mean for others with spinal injury? Kate Hagan stitches together the evidence. Darek Fidyka sounds as though he has been through a lot. How did he lose his ability to walk? A Bulgarian firefighter, Mr Fidyka's spinal cord was severed after he was repeatedly stabbed in the back during a knife attack in 2010. It left the 40-year-old paralysed from the chest down. Despite two years of intensive physiotherapy he had showed no sign of recovery. Why did scientists think he might be able to walk again? Scientists have long recognised the potential of particular cells in the olfactory bulb, at the top of the nasal cavity, to stimulate growth of nerve fibres. Called olfactory ensheathing cells, they act as pathway cells to enable nerve fibres in the olfactory system to be constantly renewed throughout a person's life, preserving the senses of smell and taste. The role … Continue reading →

In 2010, Darek Fidyka was paralyzed from the chest down as a result of a knife attack that left an 8 mm gap in his spinal column. Now surgeons in Poland, working in collaboration with scientists in London, have given Fidyka the ability to walk again thanks to a new procedure using transplanted cells from his olfactory bulbs. The spinal injury that left Darek Fidyka paralyzed did not see the spinal cord entirely severed, but rather an 8 mm chunk removed from the left side. Researchers have for years worked to develop treatments to help those with spinal injuries, but for Fidyka no amount of therapy was helping him recover feeling below his chest. Now, two years after the groundbreaking treatment, Fidyka has regained some feeling in his legs, feet, bowels, bladder, and can now walk with the assistance of a frame. The procedure saw the medical team remove one of Fidykas olfactory bulbs then grow olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) in culture and graft the cells onto his damaged spinal column where they helped to re-link vital nerve fibers. According to the UCL, the OECs act as pathway cells that repair and renew nerve fibers when damaged. The team chose … Continue reading →

(CNN) - A ground-breaking cell transplant has allowed a paralyzed man to walk again, researchers announced Tuesday. Polish man Darek Fidyka, 38, had been left paralyzed from the chest down after a 2010 knife attack caused an 8mm gap in his spinal cord. An initial 13 months of rehabilitation followed by an additional 8-month program before the experimental treatment had not produced an improvement in his condition, researchers said. But two years after the 2012 cell transplant he can walk with the aid of a Zimmer frame, also known as a walker. Scientists at University College London (UCL) developed the treatment, which saw olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) from the nose transplanted to Fidyka's spinal cord. OECs are what allow the sense of smell to return when nerve cells in the nose are damaged. Surgeons at Wroclaw University in Poland led by Dr Pawel Tabakow injected the OECs above and below Fidyka's spinal cord gap, then used nerve tissue taken from his ankle to act as a bridge for spinal nerves to grow across, UCL said. Three months after the surgery, Fidyka's thigh muscle began to grow and three months after that he started to walk with leg braces and the … Continue reading →

Now we have shown we can do it, not only in rats but in one man, theres no reason to restrict this to spinal cord. We have opened the door to a future which is terrifyingly large. We have knowledge which could be of great value, we cant stop now, he said. Prof Raisman said he thought the procedure could pave the way for mass treatment of spinal cord injuries, but cautioned: Whether I am right or wrong has to be proved and will be proved first in the first stage by us; we have to repeat this. He said he was absolutely frightened by the huge potential of the treatment and now had a responsibility to see if the treatment could indeed be used to help others. Darek Fidyka. (Photo: BBC) John Haycock, a Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Sheffield, said: It paves the way for cell-based therapies in conditions of the nervous system previously thought impossible to treat, not just spinal cord injuries but other conditions such as stroke. This is however early days, and much more research on how effective and reproducible this treatment is will be needed for many years to come. However, Dr … Continue reading →

Paralysed men Darek Fidyka is able to walk again after a pioneering cell transplant treatment(YouTube) Paralysis sufferers around the world have been offered the possibility of a cure for the first time in history, after a new therapy pioneered by British scientists has allowed a man with a severed spinal cord to walk again. Darek Fidyka, a Bulgarian man who was paralysed after a knife attack in 2010, is now able to walk using a frame. He told BBC News that walking again was an "incredible feeling" and said it was like being "born again". The treatment, which was carried out by surgeons in Poland in collaboration with scientists at University College London, involved transplanting cells from Fidyka's nasal cavity into his spinal cord. The therapy used olfactory ensheathing cells, OECs, which are specialist cells that form part of the sense of smell. The cells repair damage to nasal nerves. In the first procedure of its kind, doctors removed one of Fidyka's olfactory bulbs (the neural structure that the cells come from) and grew cells in the culture. Then, doctors implanted the harvested cells into an 8mm gap in the spinal cord of Fidyka.He had been confined to a wheelchair … Continue reading →

........................................................................................................................................................................................ A man paralyzed from the chest down in a knife attack is walking again after undergoing surgery using cells responsible for the sense of smell, marking an advance in the search for treatments for spinal injuries. Darek Fidyka, 38, received the cells after failing to recover from a stabbing in the back in 2010, according to University College London, whose doctors developed the procedure. The technique involves using olfactory ensheathing cells and placing them in the spinal cord. The study gives hope to the thousands of people each year who suffer a severe spinal cord injury and must live the rest of their lives with permanently damaged body functions. Such injuries typically occur during sports or automobile crashes and there is no approved treatment to repair them. We have now opened the door to a treatment of spinal cord injury that will get patients out of wheelchairs, said Geoff Raisman, chairman of neural regeneration at the UCL Institute of Neurology and leader of the U.K. research team. Our goal now is to develop this first procedure to a point where it can be rolled out as a worldwide general approach. The cells used were discovered by Raisman in 1985 … Continue reading →