Dr. Nicholas Cappello

Imagine living with an aching, throbbing thumb day in and day out. The pain can be so bad, you can’t use your hand and it keeps you up at night.

Osteoarthritis of the thumb can cause severe pain and is more common in women than men. A full 30 percent of women age 65 to 74 are estimated to have arthritis in their thumb, and 80 percent of women will have it once they turn 80.

“Often, this type of arthritis is the only problem in very active, healthy people. It’s the one thing that’s really interfering with their life,” . “They wake up at night, they can’t work, they can’t pick up a pen. It disproportionately ruins their life. If we had a good treatment that didn’t have side effects, their lives would improve dramatically.”

Other treatments, such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications, can have side effects or don’t work for many patients. “Cortisone shots are a common treatment.

The secrets to maintaining a healthy Back

• Avoid standing for long periods of time.
• DO NOT wear high heels.
• Use cushioned soles when walking.
• When sitting for work, especially if using a computer, make sure that your chair has a straight back with an adjustable seat and back, armrests, and a swivel seat.
• Use a stool under your feet while sitting so that your knees are higher than your hips.
• Place a small pillow or rolled towel behind your lower back while sitting or driving for long periods of time.
• If you drive long distance, stop and walk around every hour.

The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from the brain to the mid back . The brain and spinal cord together make up the central nervous system.

SPINAL CORD INJURY

A Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is damage or trauma to the spinal cord that results in a loss or impaired function causing reduced mobility or feeling. Common causes of damage are trauma (car accident, gunshot, falls, sports injuries, etc.) or disease (Transverse Myelitis, Polio, Spina Bifida, , etc.).

The spinal cord does not have to be severed in order for a loss of functioning to occur. In most people with SCI, the spinal cord is intact, but the cellular damage to it results in loss of functioning. SCI is very different from back injuries such as ruptured disks, spinal stenosis or pinched nerves.

It is possible for a person to “break their back or neck” yet not sustain a spinal cord injury as long as only the bones (the vertebrae) around the spinal cord are damaged, but the spinal cord is not affected. In these cases, the person may not experience paralysis after the vertebrae are stabilized.

REGENERATION

Damaged nerves must first grow for regeneration to occur. There are  proteins that function as “growth factors. These help prevent cell death. They also work like a “nerve fertilizer” to help neurons survive and nerves regenerate. Different pathways in the spinal cord may require particular combinations of growth factors for survival after injury

Block Inhibitory Process

One problem that occurs in regeneration is that certain factors prevent nerve cells in the central nervous system from growing. Spinal cord tissue contains certain chemicals that stop nerve regeneration and we have a way of blocking these proteins.

Electrical stimulation

Researchers at Purdue University’s Center for Paralysis Research and Indiana University School of Medicine are using low-level electrical stimulation on paralyzed dogs. They implant a small battery pack, known as a stimulator , near the dog’s spine.
It sends a weak electrical signal (thousandths of a volt) to the site of injury. This helps regenerate cells and guide growth in the damaged nerves. In about a third of the cases, the dogs improved significantly.

Stem Cells

Certain kinds of stem cells can produce any kind of cell in the body. This means they can make replacement cells for other body parts, including spinal cord cells.
Stem cells from both rodent and human tissues are being studied. One major question is what determines whether stem cells develop into cells that help regeneration, e.g. nerve cells, or cells that make myelin, and not into cells that prevent regeneration, e.g. scar tissue.

Conclusion
Spinal cord injury research has now come of age. Because of general progress in neuroscience, as well as specific advances in spinal cord injury research, researchers can test new ideas about how changes in molecules, cells, and their complex interactions determine the outcome of spinal cord injury. Inspired by demonstrations that spinal cord nerve cells can regrow, researchers are learning to manipulate trophic factors, intrinsic growth programs, and growth inhibitors to encourage regeneration.
Overcoming spinal cord injuries will require general progress in many fields of neuroscience. The future in spinal cord regeneration seems rather promising.