Concussions in the Sports World

SB Nation reports that hockey player Paul Kariya announced retirement after experiencing too many concussions.

Hockey star Paul Kariya’s recent decision to retire early was sad news to many of his fans who have followed him throughout the years. However, having experienced several concussions throughout his career, the athlete fears he will likely experience another brain injury. His most recent injury caused him to sit out the entire last season. 

With fights breaking out left and right, it is no secret that hockey is a rough sport. And, Kariya doesn’t think the NHL is taking the proper precautions to prevent concussions. In an interview, he explained the player that caused his most recent head injury was not even punished.  He fears that, in the future,  a player may even die on the ice. Kariya thinks, in order for things to change, the NHL should begin fining owners and suspending coaches.

We can’t blame Kariya for taking an early retirement. Too many concussions can lead to negative repercussions like memory loss and, in more serious cases, dementia. This isn’t something to be taken lightly, and doctors advise athletes who have experienced numerous concussions not to return to the sport.   

How do you think different sport leagues can improve their policies to prevent concussions?

Check out this video of Kariya on the ice.

Breathing Treatment Prevents Amputation

WRAL.com recently shared a story on an alternative treatment that saved a young girl’s limb.

In January, Makayla Clary was in a serious ATV crash that crushed her legs. After being rushed to the hospital by helicopter, it seemed likely that her right leg would have to be amputated. However, her surgical team intervened and advised Clary to try an alternative treatment before resorting to the amputation.

The team suggested hyperbaric oxygen treatments to treat her severely wounded legs. This form of therapy requires a patient to enter a sealed chamber with pressure 1.5 times greater than normal atmosphere and breathe pure oxygen.  Over a two week period, Clary underwent this therapy for two hours daily.

You may be wondering how this treatment works, because I think it’s safe to say we all breathe oxygen. However, hyperbaric oxygen treatments kicks things up a notch by allowing patients to breathe up to three times more oxygen than in a normal environment. In effect, blood is stimulated to release growth factors and stem cells which increase healing rate.

This therapy certainly worked for Clary. Recently, she was able to take three steps towards her mother, who explains that her leg is like new.

Take a look at how hyperbaric oxygen treatment works.

The First U.S. Child with a Bionic Elbow

ABC News shares the story of the first child to receive an arm bone prosthetic.

A few months ago, Josalyn Kaldenberg’s future looked bleak. The 8-year-old was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a bone cancer, and faced a possible arm amputation. But, just four days before the scheduled amputation, things began to turn around.

Her mother reached out to Moffitt Cancer Center, located in Tampa, FL. The center, which specializes in prosthetic bone surgery, is renowned for its’ treatment and research. Here, Dr. G. Douglas Letson offered his services free of charge.

Dr. Letson proposed that Kaldenberg be the first child to receive a bionic elbow. This had never been done before because, unlike adults, children’s bones are still growing. However, with a new expandable prosthesis, it is now possible for young children to have prosthetic bones. As Kaldenberg grows she will have to visit Tampa annually to have the prosthetic lengthened. However, she will not have to undergo surgery. Instead, Dr. Letson will make a small incision and expand the prosthetic with an Allen key.

Because it was the first of its kind, insurance didn’t cover the procedure. So, Letson offered to perform the surgery free of charge and was able to get the prosthetic at a discounted price. The hospital offered its resources at no cost as well. Fundraisers have also assisted the Kaldenberg family with other expenses.

Without hesitation, the family accepted the offers. Today, Kaldenberg’s arm is almost completely functional. Although her shoulder will be a little weaker, her wrist and elbow are already working as if she had never had the surgery. This young girl has also been given a second chance at life. Thanks to her chemotherapy treatment, the chances are likely she will come out of this cancer free.

There is no doubt Kaldenberg is a fighter. She has already accomplished the one thing she set out to do after surgery…play the piano.  

See the bionic elbow in action.

Machines, Monkeys and New Hope for Treating Paralysis

Research being conducted by Dr. Miguel Nicolelis from Duke University has uncovered a new method for capturing brain function by recording the way neurons work together as a symphony, rather than the activity of single neurons. This research is paving the way for new ways of treating paralysis.

In the field of neuroscience for the last 100 years, the belief has been particular areas of the brain are responsible for certain functions. However, research in the last decade has shown neurons all over the brain are contributing, albeit in different ways, to generate a particular behavior.

"This new field of brain research is taking off and changing what we thought we knew," said Dr. Miguel Nicolelis during the Beyond Boundaries lecture at Florida Hospital Orlando on June 8.

Taking this new information about how the brain operates he, along with his team, began to question if they could create therapies to restore function in those with spinal cord injuries or other debilitating conditions by building a brain machine interface.

A brain machine interface works by implanting small electrodes just beneath the scalp, which are capable of recording the electrical signals in the brain responsible for various motor behaviors. The signals are then sent to the machine so the message can be decoded, translated into digital commands and sent to a robotic arm, a robotic leg or virtual body to create movement.

To test their brain machine interface Nicolelis’ team experimented with primates. Now, his star monkey, Aurora, is known all over the world because she was one of the first primates to actually enact its voluntary motor will just by thinking.

Aurora learned to play a video game by controlling the joystick with her own arm and was rewarded every time she “scored” by getting a drop of fruit juice. While she was learning to play the game, the team recorded her brain activity so computers could learn to reproduce her arm movements in a robotic device stored in another room. After a few weeks the team removed the joystick and Aurora quickly came to the realization that to play the game and get her fruit juice, she didn't need to move her body at all. She just had to imagine the movements and the robotic arm would move and control the computer cursor so she could keep playing and winning her fruit juice.

Going a step further they decided to test how far the signal could reach. Using a 12-pound, 32-inch monkey named Idoya made a 200-pound, 5-foot humanoid robot walk on a treadmill using only her brain activity. Her walking pattern and brain signals were collected in North Carolina, fed into the computer and transmitted over a high-speed Internet link to a robot in Kyoto, Japan.

According to the New York Times, the robot, called CB for Computational Brain, has the same range of motion as a human. It can dance, squat, point and “feel” the ground with sensors embedded in its feet, and it will not fall over when shoved.

As Idoya’s brain signals streamed into CB’s actuators, her job was to make the robot walk steadily via her own brain activity. She could see the back of CB’s legs on an enormous movie screen in front of her treadmill and received treats if she could make the robot’s joints move in synch with her own leg movements.

The trick came when the researchers stopped Idoya's treadmill. What would happen? She focused on the movie screen and CB's legs continued to move. And, Idoya got her treats.

Yet, to make this effective for humans, it became important to prove that not only could the brain machine interface receive signals from the brain, but could also send them back so conceivably one could recognize and feel the movement happening. Nicolelis used the example of a soccer player who doesn’t have to see where the ball is at all times to know it is there because it is literally an extension of him.

Reminiscent of the blockbuster movie, Avatar, the team created an avatar monkey in a virtual world and discovered the real monkey, using the brain machine interface, was able to control the avatar monkey and recognize and feel different textures in the virtual world.  

The revelations from his work with primates have led to funding opportunities for The Walk Again Project. The main goal of the project currently is to debut the brain machine interface technology at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil by having a Brazilian teenager who is paralyzed walk out with the Brazilian soccer team with the help of an exoskeleton.

Walk Again is a multinational collaborative effort to free paralyzed patients from the confines of their physical bodies through breakthroughs in neuroscience. Led by the Duke Center for Neuroengineering, Walk Again is developing a high performance brain-controlled prosthetic device that enables patients to finally leave the wheelchair behind.

For more information, please visit www.walkagainproject.org

  

A Selfless Activist

The London Evening Post shares a story about a woman truly dedicated to making a change.
Carolina Gonzalez-Bunster had a successful career as a banker for Goldman Sachs, an investment banking firm. But, after a financial crisis, she left the firm and returned home to clear her mind. This is when her life changed.

She noticed that her brother, who is left paralyzed from the chest down as a result of a car crash, was training for a marathon in an outdoor pool in freezing temperatures. He was forced to do so because the indoor pool at the local YMCA was not convenient for those in wheel chairs.

So, Carolina decided to become proactive and make a change.  Today, Carolina and her brother, Luis, run the Walkabout Foundation. The team has won the support of Bill Clinton and Martin Sheen. The organization is dedicated to finding a cure for paralysis and distributing wheel chairs to third world countries.

After the earthquake in Haiti, Carolina visited the third-world country with Clinton. The Walkabout Foundation donated 750 light weight wheelchairs to help the amputees and those with spinal cord injuries. And, Carolina continues to travel to other third world countries to make a positive change for SCI survivors around the globe.

Do you know anyone who was inspired to make a change as a result of your injury? We’d love to hear your story!

Check out this video of the foundation's work in Haiti.

A Faux Pau I Will Certainly Learn From

As some of you may have noticed, our last blog was originally titled “Big Changes for SCI Victims.” You guys probably also noticed that I used the term ‘victims.’  Boy, what a careless mistake that was.

First, I want to apologize to anyone I may have offended. I have to admit, I didn’t even realize I had used the offensive term until one of our followers brought it to my attention. When you hear the term used to describe you so often, it embeds itself in your mind and slips out at the most unfortunate time.  And this is why we need to educate people as to why we should abolish the word from our vocabulary!

 If one of our followers hadn’t pointed out my error, I probably would have gone on thinking that I had done nothing wrong. For that reason alone, I am thankful that someone took the time to inform me.
In response, I decided to learn more about the issue. I found a really helpful article titled “A Few Words About People First Language” by Kathie Snow. I have to say, this article opened my eyes to a different aspect of catastrophic injuries.

Every day, we fight to be defined by who we are rather than let an injury define us. Unfortunately, the wrong choice of words, innocently used or not, can reinforce stereotypes.  We should never let a preconceived idea influence us when judging one’s character.

In short, don’t judge a book by its cover. As cliché as this old saying may sound, it is the basis for any progress society makes when it comes to fighting prejudice. And, those with disabilities are no exception to this. 

Lesson of the day….choose my words wisely.

Big Changes Ahead for SCI Survivors

ABC News recently shared T.J. Atchinson’s story, the first SCI survivor to test embryonic stem cell therapy.

T.J. Atchinson is on the frontier of a concept that may drastically change the lives of SCI victims. After a car accident in September, 2010, Atchinson was told he would never walk again. But, the 21-year-old decided to take a chance and undergo embryonic stem cell therapy.
As the first human to undergo this procedure, no one knew what to expect. Today, after six months of therapy, Atchinson is regaining sensation in his legs. Doctors are hoping that, with more therapy, his progress will continue to improve.

It’s no secret that there is great controversy surrounding stem cell research. However, Atchinson’s mother says that those who have not experienced a traumatic event like this are in no place to judge. If this surgery works as expected, it will not only improve Atchinson’s life, but the lives of SCI victims everywhere.

Check out the video below.

Throwing Predeterminations Out of the Window

A recent article on mlive.com, shares DJ Little’s story and the power of grit and determination.

At 10-years-old, this young man was hit by a car and suffered a traumatic brain injury along with other trauma. He was in a coma for one month and remained in the hospital for ten months after the accident. Doctors said he would reach his maximum rehabilitation within the first year. However, Little didn’t let this prediction get in the way of his goals and outlook on life.

Today, the 14-year-old has proven everyone wrong. In the beginning, he couldn’t even roll over in bed on his own.  Since then, he has learned to speak, feed himself, sit up and talk. Currently, he has goal in mind…..walking across stage at his eighth grade graduation.

Take a look at the inspirational video from mlive.com.