Word: spinal
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...just at UCLA. At Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, dogs have been incorporated into rehabilitation treatments for victims of brain and spinal-cord injuries. At the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Sandra Barker brings her own Lhasa apso to relax shock-therapy patients who are visibly trembling before treatment. In Texas, dogs are used to motivate children recovering in burn units and to calm residents in Alzheimer's wards...
...Nerve cells Could be used to treat Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and spinal-cord injuries...
Nicolelis is convinced that this system will work for humans - an interface that might allow paralyzed people, who generally have healthy limbs that they are unable to use due to spinal cord damage (which prevents brain signals from reaching their limbs), to control their own biological limbs. It could also give people extended senses, allowing them to have virtual limbs in cyberspace or robotic limbs in the physical world. "The brain knows that it has an arm and a hand because it is connected to these things and gets feedback from them," Nicolelis says. "The same could be true...
...article on Dr. John Upledger [INNOVATORS, April 16] noted that he founded a nontraditional medical treatment called craniosacral therapy that is designed to free restrictions in the circulation of the cerebrospinal fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord. In so doing, Dr. Upledger built upon the work of Dr. William Sutherland, an early 20th century osteopath, who theorized that the bones of the skull remain mobile in adulthood and developed a treatment to improve their mobility...
While assisting in a spinal operation in the 1970s, Upledger was startled to notice a strong pulse in the membranes that surrounded the patient's spinal cord. He determined that the pulse--which did not appear in the medical books--was coming from the cerebrospinal fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord. He came to believe that anything that blocked the flow of this fluid could cause physical and mental distress. "All these membranes affect brain function," he says, "and when they're not moving properly, there can be harm...