Last Friday night Houston Texas receiver Harry Williams sustained a spinal cord injury (SCI) during a game against the Dallas Cowboys leaving him temporarily paralyzed. Monday he underwent surgery to fuse two vertebrae in his spinal column, a procedure that will hopefully allow him to lead a normal life, but won’t put him back in the game.

Williams was only 26, an age that would have given him years more on the field had this accident not happened. An estimated 14 percent of SCIs are a direct result of a sports related injury. Considering that there is about ten thousand new SCIs a year, this is a fairly significant number.

Last year Kevin Everett with the Buffalo Bills football team was paralyzed during a game. He has since recovered his ability to move his arms and legs, but he will never play football again. His recovery from paralysis, along with Williams’, is a rare occurrence as most who experience paralysis stay paralyzed.

There are 31 pairs of nerves that spread out from the spinal cord into the arms, chest, legs and abdomen. The nerves that are in charge of upper body movement are in the upper portion of the spine, while the ones that control the legs are in the lower area. Not only are these nerves responsible for limb movement, they also control basic functions such as breathing and heart beat.

The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research has reported that in 2006 there were 16 indirect deaths and only one fatality in football, and the death was caused by a SCI. In 2007 there were eight cervical cord injuries with incomplete recoveries. Six of these were at the high school level. The majority of the SCIs occurred in games with only two happening during practice.

Considering that in 2007 there were 1,800,000 football players, these statistics aren’t painting too bleak of a picture. While each injury or fatality is a reason for concern, innovative safety gear has greatly decreased the chance of experiencing an unrecoverable injury. We have neurosurgeons such as Richard C. Schneider to thank for the decrease in permanent spine and head injuries. He helped to develop the football helmets our players currently use which have directly influenced this decrease as documented in the National Football Head and Neck Injury Register.

As researchers come up with better and more intuitive protective gear, we will continue to see these traumatic injuries decrease. In the meantime, those who have had their lives irrevocably changed from a brain or spinal cord injury deserve our continued support.

We are always looking for new developments that can lead to spinal cord injury (SCI) recovery and press releases like this one are a great incentive to keep looking.

The PLoS Medicine site reports that researchers studying spinal cord injuries in mice found that chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan (CSPG) is needed for the repair of the neurons that will facilitate the regaining of movement, but after time, it actually hinders a full nervous system recovery. In studies on mice, the researchers allowed CSPG to act uninhibited for two days after the injury before interfering and by doing this, created a promising response in the animals.

Heavily secreted after an injury, CSPG helps to form glial scars after a SCI. These scars protect the damaged areas, but they also release chemicals that work to prevent further regeneration in the nervous system. Because of its link to preventing axonal development, researchers were focused on eliminating CSPG from the injured area.

This compounded data suggests that eliminating CSPG may not be the best answer, and scientists are opting instead to control it. CSPG has a place in the healing process as it regulates the local immune response which is vital for proper healing.

So far studies only extend to animals, not humans, but there are similar enough correlations between spinal cord repair processes that it’s believed this research can soon be applied to human subjects.

To read the original release, please click here.

Have you felt like you or someone else you know with a disability has been the victim of a hate crime? We will admit that this isn’t a subject that we knew much about before coming across a BBC article discussing the issue.

“Last year, Christine Lakinski - a woman in her 50s with learning and physical disabilities - had collapsed in the street near her home in Harlepool when she was set upon by a neighbour. She was covered in shaving foam, urinated upon and filmed on a mobile phone as she lay dying.”

This horrendous account started us thinking about the issue - if there is actually an issue with disabled hate crimes.

According to the same BBC article, there have been multiple deaths where the assailed was either physically or mentally disabled, or a combination of the two. The question asked seems to be - where does the title “hate crime” come into play?

If you are picking on someone who is different from you, is it a matter of “hate” or is it just a form of bullying? When someone is either physically or mentally hurt from the actions of another, does it matter what the label is? According to the law, there is a significant difference.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines a hate crime as “a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. For the purposes of collecting statistics, Congress has defined a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.” Hate itself is not a crime—and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties.”

Interestingly enough, “federal statutes prevent the FBI from investigating crimes of bias motivated solely by … disability” as this is primarily the domain of the local law enforcement. Because hate crimes are often a blurry area, they tend to get prosecuted as arson, murder or intimidation. For disability specifically, the majority of crimes usually fall under Title 42 - Criminal Interference with Right to Fair Housing. This statute focuses on preventing intimidation, interference or injury in regards to a person’s housing rights.

This makes sense when you consider the amount of disabled people who are unable to care for themselves physically and are dependent on either paid or non-paid companions to assert their rights. But what about those who are harassed outside of a housing situation?

The Criminal Justice Act of 2003 labels a hate crime as an “offense motived by hatred or prejudice towards a person because of their actual or perceived disability. It is also a criminal offense in which immediately before, after or during the offense the perpetrator demonstrates hostility towards a person because of their actual or perceived disability.”

So what does all this mean? People with a disability are protected from hate crimes or anything that can be construed as a hate crime by our legal system. The difficulty is not just in the justice system’s definition, but in what the person who encountered the situation considers the harassment, intimidation or abuse to be.

In our research we found multiple accounts of those who both supported the idea of a disabled hate crime and those who thought it was too strong or too general of a term. Where this becomes important is when the definition is imperative to categorizing acts against the disabled as hate crimes in order to better protect them from abuse.

In the UK, surveyors found that the 68 recorded cases of disability hate crimes prosecuted between April and September 2007 fell far short of the number those surveyed had directly experienced. When it’s a matter of protecting and denouncing this sort of crime, it becomes vitally important to have them not only clearly defined, but to have a precedent to follow that will help prevent future occurrences.

Call it “harassment” or call it a hate crime; any degree of abuse towards a disabled person should be confronted immediately for what it is. And hopefully, with a greater awareness of this issue, more people will be willing to protect those who are physically or mentally unable to protect themselves.

Remember that feeling of invincibility that you had as a teenager? For most of us, that feeling is almost unrecognizable now that life has caught up with us and we are aware of just how delicate life can be.

Dr. Najma Ahmed, the assistant director of trauma at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada, says that this feeling of invincibility is preventable. “Teenage drivers have the highest rate of injury and death from motor vehicle crashes of any demographic group in Canada,” says the Canadian Press, and most of these teens are oblivious to their danger.

Dr. Ahmed says “It’s my job, our job to save them.” With a new program at St. Michael’s, she is hoping to do just that. A study of 260 adolescents found that when teens met with their peers who had sustained paralysis or another such life altering injury, they were most likely to alter their attitude and behavior in regards to taking the risk of damage or death seriously.

Dr. Ahmed is promoting the ThinkFirst Injury Prevention Strategy for Youth (TIPSY) at St. Michael’s, a program that takes teens to see first hand what can happen to them. Some of the situations included visiting young victims of accidents in the ICU unit, a situation that worked to bring the intended point home.

Researchers are hoping that programs such as this will spread as parents begin to realize the importance of prevention. Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) or spinal cord injuries (SCI) are just some of the life changing results of a teen driving too fast and losing control of their car.

With early education, such as is given through TIPSY, the researchers at St. Michael’s hope to greatly minimize these traumatic situations as more youth leave behind the idea that “it can’t happen to me”.

Q: What are the most common results of a spinal cord injury?

A: Depending on the particular injury sustained, there are a wide variety of primary and secondary complications that can result from a spinal cord injury.

Damage to the nerve fibers that carry motor signals to the brain through severing or compression can lead to muscle paralysis and loss of sensations such as those experienced through touch or pressure. Other potential effects are loss of bladder control, muscle contractions, decreased breathing capacity, exaggerated reflexes, over or under sensitivity to temperature changes, lasting pain, impaired sexual functioning and issues with bowel control.

Some of the most common secondary effects are increased blood pressure, sweating, pressure sores and an increased susceptibility to respiratory ailments.

Typically any of these functions that are lost will be regained within six months, if they are to return at all. After that point your chances of recuperation decreases greatly. This is why it is so important to make sure you receive proper care immediately after sustaining a spinal cord injury.

A spinal cord injury results in a profound emotional response from both the survivor and his or her friends as family, as they try to come to terms with what has happened and understand what the future holds. During the time following a spinal cord injury, there are three things that survivors and their family should know.

1. Factors Affecting Recovery

The first thing that new spinal cord injury survivors must know is what factors will affect their recovery. The severity of the injury, area of the spinal cord that was damaged, and which nerve fibers were damaged will all factor in to the types of long-term disabilities the survivor will face.

How quickly treatment is accessed following the spinal cord injury will also be a major factor in recovery, as well as the type and amount of rehabilitation. In general, a combination of physical therapy, vocational rehabilitation, counseling, and recreational therapy will be used.

2. Why There is No Cure for Spinal Cord Injury

After the survivor knows what will potentially affect recovery, he or she will want to know why there aren’t any cures for spinal cord injury. The reason there are no cures is that spinal cord injury is extremely complicated. When the axons in the spinal cord are crushed or torn beyond repair, a chain of biochemical and cellular events strip axons of their myelin insulation and cause an inflammatory response. The inflammatory response causes additional damage. The damage results in the damaged area of the spinal cord not being able to pass messages from the brain to the body.

3. If There Will Ever Be a Cure for Spinal Cord Injury

The third thing that every spinal cord injury survivor wants to know is if there will ever be a cure. Currently, there are no therapies or treatments in the works designed to reverse changes to the body. However, there are some therapies being studied that may restore some level of function to some people.

Did you know that motor vehicle accidents are the number one cause of spinal cord injuries in kids? Not surprising, an estimated 70 percent of these injuries happened to children who were not wearing seat belts.

Even a small impact, such as a minor rear-ending, can cause potential spinal cord damage. Here are some of the symptoms to look for:

Flaccid extremties

Paralysis

Numbness or paresthesias (sensations such as tingling or burning)

Paresis or weakness

Priaprism

Incontinence of bowel or bladder

Injuries to the spinal cord are difficult to discover in children, so it’s necessary to closely monitor for these signs as well as indicators of pain or poor reflexes.

While we can’t always prevent an injury, we can work to limit the damage by acting quickly after an accident.

Don’t let your disability keep you inside this summer! This week’s tech report is on products that will make the beach comfortably accessible.

Beach wheelchairs are a great way to get out and about and enjoy the sunshine and they make accessing any sandy waterfront affordable and fun. The De-Bug by Achievable Concepts is a four wheeled, fixed frame all-terrain wheelchair. It is made with stainless steel tubing, has 21 by 11 inch front tires and 13 by 6 inch rear tires along with padded armrests and sling seating. The rear suspension articulates 20 degrees which allows all four wheels to maintain ground contact, creating stability, while the large front tires are said to make it easier to push.

Another all-terrain chair is the Landeez All-Terrain Wheelchair. This one can not only traverse the sand, but can also maneuver through water, snow or mud. Different in form from the De-Bug, the Landeez’s rear tires are large with a soft PVC plastic pneumatic design that absorbs road shocks. They are also made with stainless steel frames and have a 325 pound weight capacity.

These are just two examples of wheelchairs that provide access to nature’s attractions…we don’t advocate for any in particular as they all have a variety of different features and fits that will appeal to different people. Check them out and find one that fits you!

Here are a couple of sites to get you started on your wheelchair search:

Achievable Concepts

Landeez

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There are two new groundbreaking developments in paralysis and spinal cord research. These are peripheral nerve re-routing, and suppression of scar formation and spinal cord regeneration.

Peripheral Nerve Re-Routing

Peripheral nerve re-routing entails taking the peripheral nerves above the point of injury, and surgically rerouting them so they are connected to peripheral nerves below the injury site. This allows new functional connections between the brain and previously dormant muscle or sensory system to be created.

Peripheral nerve re-routing has been around for about 100 years, and has been attempted on hundreds of patients with spinal cord injuries. While peripheral nerve re-routing can’t completely cure a spinal cord injury, it can allow for various degrees of improvement. For example, patients with C1 to C4 injuries have experienced improved respiratory function following the procedure, while some arm and hand function has been returned to patients with C5 through C9 injuries. Patients with lower spinal cord injuries have, in some cases, seen improvement in leg function.

Suppression of Scar Formation and Spinal Cord Regeneration

This theory is based on the idea that traumatic spinal cord injury causes inflammation, as well as lack of a cell—called glia—where the nerve fibers are damaged. The result is the formation of a fibrous meshwork of dense scar tissue that prevents axons from regenerating. Suppression of scar formation and spinal cord regeneration is a two-pronged approach designed to reverse the process of scarring and promote the healing of nerve fibers.

During this procedure, scar tissue is suppressed or removed in order to promote axon growth across sites of the injury. Second, a therapy designed to restore glia, such as stem cell therapy, is used to regenerate the spinal cord. While studies in humans is still relatively new, studies on animals have shown significant promise.

Q: What was the inspiration for the Paralympics?

A: Originally the Paralympics were created as a rehabilitation program for British war veterans who had spinal injuries. In 1948 Sir Ludwig Guttman, a neurologist at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, added sports to help his patients rehabilitate.

He set it up as a competition between his hospital and others, and held it during the London Olympics. This idea was adopted by hospital after hospital throughout Britain and in 1960, Guttman brought 400 of these athletes to Rome to compete during that year’s Olympics. It was then that the name “Paralympics” was coined.

By 1968 there were more than 1,000 athletes participating from 44 countries. Today the Paralympics host elite athletes from six different disability groups. Since the beginning, they have been held in the same year as the Olympics, and often in the same city. This year they will be held in Beijing, China and the Winter Paralympics for 2012 will be in Vancouver, Canada.