Research on traumatic spinal cord injuries is hampered by a reliance on animal experiments that don’t accurately predict human outcomes, says a new study in the upcoming edition of the peer-reviewed journal Reviews in the Neurosciences. The review was written by scientists with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

MONDAY, April 28 (HealthDay News) — Patients having decompression surgery within 24 hours of a cervical spinal cord injury may have a better outcome than those who have the procedure later, according to new research. Six months after surgery, 24 percent of the patients who had the surgery within 24 hours showed two-grade or greater improvement in their condition compared with only 4 percent in the group that had the surgery more than a day later.

While this can arguably be blamed on higher incidences of complications from diabetes and vascular issues, there is not a corresponding ratio of disease prevalence says a new study based in Illinois. Health insurance policies, medical care centers, and local medical staff should be carefully scrutinized.

Those great folks at Project Mend-A-House are looking for gently used building supplies and assistive technology devices for their Builders Yard Sale on June 7. Volunteers are also needed that day. Please call 703-792-7663 to volunteer or call Buck to arrange for your donation to be picked up at 703-501-5640.

It looks like nothing more than a tidy starter home.

But the house on a corner lot in one of McKeesport’s most depressed neighborhoods might hold the key to the city’s long-awaited rebirth.

Built by local nonprofit Blueroof Technologies, the model home is the first glimpse of a planned zone of high-tech cottages that would enable elderly or disabled people to stay in their own places instead of nursing homes.

Every year, nearly 12,000 individuals in the United States and Canada, mostly young adults, sustain a spinal cord injury (SCI). According to the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC), SCI costs an estimated $9.7 billion each year in the United States alone. Although there are some surgical interventions, such as decompression, which neurosurgeons administer to SCI patients after injury, these procedures have not dramatically improved overall recovery and outcome. “This is an area of medicine that has not seen tremendous scientific advances, so there remains an urgent need to improve upon current interventions to help restore neurological function in patients with acute SCI,” said Michael Fehlings, MD, PhD, FRCSC, FACS, head of the Krembil Neuroscience Center at the University Health Network in Toronto and professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Toronto.

Blade Runner competes in the British 400m!

These Nova Scotian children never give up. Through the use of assistive technology, the War Amp program encourages disabled children to continue to participate, and even compete, in sports and the arts.

This Friday, Arizonan non-profit, Arizona Center for Disability Law, sponsored a workshop and seminar to highlight the difficulties the disabled face in civic life.

Using a laser pointer to guide a robot to find and retrieve an item it has never seen before sounds like science fiction, but Georgia scientists have found a way to make the ‘impossible’ possible.