Paralysis News and Research

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Paralysis is the loss of muscle function in part of your body. It happens when something goes wrong with the way messages pass between your brain and muscles. Paralysis can be complete or partial. It can occur on one or both sides of your body. It can also occur in just one area, or it can be widespread. Paralysis of the lower half of your body, including both legs, is called paraplegia. Paralysis of the arms and legs is quadriplegia.

West Nile virus case in court in Canada

Just as the first mosquitoes are appearing in parts of the United States carrying the West Nile virus, a court in Canada has ruled that an insurance company must pay a man compensation after he was bitten by a mosquito at work and developed the West Nile virus.

15 May 2007

Researchers develop first antibody that detects gene mutations that cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Researchers at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine have developed the first antibody that detects the only known cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also called Lou Gehrig's disease.

9 May 2007

Multitasking mental cells

In the mid-1990s, scientists at the University of Parma, in Italy, made a discovery so novel that it shifted the way psychologists discuss the brain. After researchers implanted electrodes into the heads of monkeys, they noticed a burst of activity in the premotor cortex when the animals clutched a piece of food.

8 May 2007

How inhaled anthrax paralyzes the body's defenses

University of Florida researchers have revealed how the inhaled form of anthrax paralyzes the body's defenses and prevents immune cells from reaching the site of infection.

8 May 2007

FDA approves new indication for FRAGMIN for the extended treatment of symptomatic venous thromboembolism

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new indication for FRAGMIN (dalteparin sodium injection), for the extended treatment of symptomatic venous thromboembolism (VTE) to reduce the recurrence of VTE in patients with cancer.

4 May 2007

Examination of execution by lethal injection

Execution by lethal injection may cause death by asphyxiation, and prisoners being executed may be conscious and may experience pain, claim the authors of a new study published this week in PLoS Medicine.

25 Apr 2007

Execution by lethal injection slow, cruel and a violation of the constitution

The authors of a new study are suggesting that executions carried out by lethal injections possibly cause death by asphyxiation, and the prisoners being executed may be conscious and may experience pain.

24 Apr 2007

UNC-45 protein critical to proper formation of muscles

Proper formation of the proteins that power heart and skeletal muscle seems to rely on a precise concentration of a "chaperone" protein known as UNC-45, according to a new study.

24 Apr 2007

Pharmacyclics announces NDA for Xcytrin injection

Pharmacyclics, Inc. has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has filed the company's New Drug Application (NDA) for Xcytrin (motexafin gadolinium) Injection.

24 Apr 2007

Potential therapeutic target for multiple sclerosis

Oregon Health & Science University neuroscientists are eyeing a protein as a potential therapeutic target for multiple sclerosis because de-activating it protects nerve fibers from damage.

24 Apr 2007

New direction for therapies to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Researchers from The Ludwig Institute and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have discovered that when motor neurons damaged by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig?s disease, inappropriately send the wrong signal, immune cells react by killing the messenger.

24 Apr 2007

Local corticosteroid injection for carpal tunnel syndrom

A single corticosteroid injection in the wrist can offer at least a month of relief to people suffering from severe carpal tunnel syndrome, according to an updated review of studies by Canadian researchers.

20 Apr 2007

New combined imaging promises insights into multiple sclerosis

Researchers have developed a way to use three types of microscopic imaging techniques simultaneously to analyze living tissue and learn more about the molecular mechanisms of multiple sclerosis, information that could help lead to earlier detection and new treatments.

18 Apr 2007

Cortical mapping helps brain tumor removal

In 2006, it was estimated that 18,820 new cases were diagnosed and 12,820 deaths were associated with malignant tumors of the brain and other parts of the central nervous system.

17 Apr 2007

Astrocytes may contribute to Lou Gehrig's disease

Two papers by Columbia and Harvard researchers report for the first time that astrocytes (the most abundant non-neuronal cells in the central nervous system), which carry a mutated gene known to cause some cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease), induce motor neuron death.

16 Apr 2007

Eradicating polio a better option than extended control of the disease

Concerns about the high perceived costs of eradicating the relatively low number of polio cases worldwide have led to recent suggestions that it is time to shift from a goal of eradication to control—abandoning eradication and allowing wild poliovirus to continue to circulate, which proponents of control believe can sustain the low number of cases.

15 Apr 2007

A wavering commitment to polio eradication is not a good option!

Concerns about the high perceived costs of eradicating the relatively low number of polio cases worldwide have led to recent suggestions that it is time to shift from a goal of eradication to control-abandoning eradication and allowing wild poliovirus to continue to circulate, which proponents of control believe can sustain the low number of cases.

12 Apr 2007

New vaccine to prevent type-1 polio three times as effective as standard vaccine

The study found that each dose of the new monovalent oral poliovirus vaccine, known as mOPV1, protected 30% of susceptible children in northern India against paralytic poliomyelitis. The standard trivalent vaccine in the same setting protected just 11% of children per dose.

12 Apr 2007

Physician shortage in North America

Changes in emigration patterns of Canadian-educated physicians are not believed to have had a profound effect on the Canadian physician workforce; however, Phillips and colleagues report that, in 2006, 1 in 12 Canadian-educated physicians were practising in the US.

10 Apr 2007