Georgia Injury Law Blog

It’s not just wireless companies and commercial television stations that are in the way of a revolutionary new technology that could provide a cure for spinal cord injury. The promoters of the cure are also up against the military. However, that's not stopping the nonprofit Alfred Mann Foundation from continuing its efforts towards a treatment.

The treatment involves the use of coordinated electrical impulses from implanted devices. These impulses stimulate the muscles, thereby allowing the limbs of the spinal cord injury victim to move. Initial tests have shown dramatic results in spinal cord injury victims. Some of them have not just been able to regain movement, but are now back to doing the things they did and enjoyed before they suffered the injury. Buoyed by these successes, the Alfred Mann Foundation is pushing for wider use of this technology.

There's one major catch, however. In order for the signals to be transmitted properly within the human body, the technology requires electromagnetic spectrum. The four bands of recommended bandwidth that are ideally suited for the technology are currently occupied by the military, commercial land mobile radio and emergency mobile radio. None of these entities are keen to share their bandwidth with the application of a medical device.

They have their reasons for this refusal. According to them, there is just too much risk to a patient with the implanted device, if he's too close to a high-power transmission. For instance, if a person with the implanted device is around whenever there is a live television broadcast using up bandwidth, a high-power transmission could cause havoc with the device. The foundation insists that this isn't a problem, and that the device can resist dangerous interference.

The Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration are caught in the middle of the tussle. Obviously, this isn't an easy decision for them to make. There are also some still unidentified risks associated with allowing the technology to use the bandwidth. However, if some way is found out of this impasse, then thousands of spinal cord injury victims across Georgia will be able to regain movement again. That should be enough reason for accident lawyers in Atlanta  to support progress on this matter.

Posted By Lisa Siegel In Spinal Cord Injury | 0 Comments Permalink

American and Japanese researchers have found a potential treatment for spinal cord injury from an unexpected source-mice hair. This week, researchers unveiled their new discovery at the World Congress for Hair Research in Australia.

Researchers stumbled on this astounding discovery by accident. They were examining the skin of mice while researching cancer treatments at the Anti Cancer research lab in San Diego in California. They discovered that mice hair contained cells that, if placed on damaged nerves, could repair these nerves. Researchers used the mice hair to rejoin damaged nerves in mice with a spinal injury. At the conference, a video was shown of a mouse with a spinal injury, recuperating almost completely after being treated with hair cells.

There is enough reason to hope that this treatment can be duplicated in human beings too. Human hair has been found to contain similar cells that have equally beneficial results when used on mice with spinal cord injuries. Researchers believe that chances are high that a damaged human nerve will also respond well to the same kind of hair cell treatment.

This is likely to be very encouraging news to the more than 250,000 Americans living with spinal cord injury in the US. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, every day there are an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 new spinal cord injuries occurring in the country. Of these, about 38.5% occur during car accidents. More than 55% of all spinal cord injury victims are between 16 and 30 years of age. That means a major section of the productive population in the country, suffers from an injury that severely limits their ability to contribute to society and enjoy their lives.

As Atlanta accident lawyers, we regularly monitor research into treatment programs for spinal cord injuries, brain injuries as well as stem cell therapies for other catastrophic injuries. It seems like very often, there are potential “discoveries” in spinal cord injury research that very often,, turn out to be duds. This mice hair therapy however, seems to be promising not just because of the dramatic results seen in the mice, but also because human hair cells have also been used with success in treating mice with spinal cord injuries.

Posted By Lisa Siegel In Spinal Cord Injury | 0 Comments Permalink