Everyday there are miracles and hope carries on. Supercare4u.com does many transfers to the Otara Spinal Clinic . Spinal injuries are severe but we now hear that Scientists in Switzerland have restored full movement to rats paralysed by spinal cord injuries using techniques that might eventually be used in people with similar injuries.
The experiment had rats with severe paralysis walking and running again after a couple of weeks following a combination of electrical and chemical stimulation of the spinal cord. It remains unclear if a similar technique could help people with spinal cord damage but the technique does hint at new ways of treating it. Human injuries are most often the result of bruising or compression and it is unclear if the technique could be translated across to this type of injury.
It is also unclear if this kind of electro-chemical 'kick-start' could help a spinal cord that has been damaged for a long time, with complications like scar tissue, holes and where a large number of nerve cells and fibres have died or degenerated.
The experiments demonstrate a way of encouraging and increasing the innate ability of the spinal cord to repair itself, a quality known as neuroplasticity.
Other attempts to repair spinal cords have focused on stem cell therapy, although Geron, the world's leading embryonic stem cell company, last year closed its pioneering work in the field.
The brain and spinal cord can adapt and recover from small injuries but until now that ability was far too limited to overcome severe damage. This new study proves that recovery from severe injury is possible if the dormant spinal column is "woken up".
