There is a good news for the millions of paralytic patients like this author that they can be fully recovered, thanks to the stem cell therapy that is now out of the experimental stage and has entered into the real world be medicines, care, and therapy.
Stem cells are pluripotent cells, having the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body. Serving as a sort of repair system for the body, they can theoretically divide without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person is alive. When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the potential to either remain a stem cell or become another type of cell with a more specialized function, such as a muscle cell, a red blood cell, or a brain cell.
Stem cell does not have any tissue-specific structures that allow it to perform specialized functions. They offer the possibility of a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat many diseases, conditions, and disabilities like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, Cerebral palsy, Battens disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, restoration of vision and other neurodegenerative diseases.
First, it can surely cure Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in loss of nervous tissue and consequently loss of motor and sensory function. There was no treatment available that restores the injury-induced loss of function to a degree that an independent life can be guaranteed. Transplantation of stem cells or progenitors can now support spinal cord repair. Stem cells are characterized by self-renewal and their ability to become any cell in an organism. Promising results have been obtained in experimental models of SCI. Stem cells can be directed to differentiate into neurons or glia in vitro, which can be used for replacement of neural cells lost after SCI. Neuroprotective and axon regeneration-promoting effects have also been credited to transplanted stem cells.
Although, stem cells hold promise for spinal cord repair, but their true potential has not yet clearly been shown. At this time, stem cell–based therapies are at an early stage, and the associated risks are still unclear. But, soon, cell science will advance faster. (See: Role of Role of Stem Cells in Treatment of Neurological Disorder, International Journal of Health Sciences: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3068820/&
2678281/)
Hence, Stem cells, or one of the body’s “master cells,” that can grow into any one of the body’s more than 200 cell types and assist the body in maintaining, renewing and repairing tissue and cells damaged by disease, injury and everyday life, can now make paralytic persons, ‘normal’, once again and can also repair the internal repair system of the body.
Such ‘miracles’ are already happening as Darek Fidyka, who was paralyzed from the chest down in a knife attack in 2010, can now walk using a frame, reports BBC News (See: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29645760). It involved transplanting cells from his nasal cavity into his spinal cord and the treatment, the world first, was carried out by surgeons in Poland in collaboration with scientists in London.
Not just him, a dozen patients paralyzed from the waist down partly regained sensation in their legs, when the scientists took stem cells from the patients’ blood and injected them into an artery supplying the damaged part of the spine and within two months, the volunteers reported having feelings in their legs for the first time since their accidents.
In Britain, 400,000 people have spinal cord injuries that leave them with varying degrees of disability and for them, stem-cell therapy is a great hope, reports Daily Mail (See: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-202207/Stem-cells-offer-cure-paralysis.html)
Even, in India, the Bangalore-based Institute of Regenerative Medicine at Live 100 Hospital announced the success of stem-cell therapy that’s now available to Indian patients. (See:http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report-bangalore-hospital-claims-stem-cell-cure-for-paralysis-1918465).
Hopefully, soon, people like me will no longer be disabled or speaking in the politically correct words, differently-abled.