This video highlights Angela's House. Angela's House opened in the fall of 2000 and is a culmination of a ten-year effort by Bob Policastro. This special home for children is the first of its kind offering a loving environment with 24-hour nursing care for children with special needs such as cerebral palsy. For more information please visit www.angelashouse.org
This video highlights a great program that offers home and residential care for children with special needs such as, cerebral palsy, and other medical conditions. For more information please visit www.angelashouse.org
The different types of stem cells (CD34 hematopoietic stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells) and their origins (cord blood, placental, bone marrow etc.) are discussed in this video.
* Stem cells discussed here involve umbilical cord blood and placentas NOT fetal or embryonic stem cells, as Legal and ethical issues may arise when fetal or embryonic stem cells are involved.
This video depicts the history of United Cerebral Palsy (UCP). If you would like information on a local chapter of the UCP and other local resources please visit our State Resource Guide.
Selecting the right attorney for a child with cerebral palsy may seem like a daunting task at times. So I put together some questions to help.
If you would like further assistance, I am more then happy to recommend an attorney that specializes in birth injury cases in your area, so please don’t hesitate to call me directly at (202) 243-0581 or 1 (888) 456-4658 or send me an e-mail at robert@dioriofirm.com (please include your name, phone number, child’s date of birth, State where your child was born and State where you are currently residing)
Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you,
Robert
1. Is the attorney familiar with the many medical and legal complexities of cerebral palsy?
2. Has the lawyer/attorney successfully handled cases involving cerebral palsy in the past?
3. If so, what percentage of the lawyer’s practice is dedicated to representing individuals with cerebral palsy?
4. Is the lawyer associated with any reputable law associations such as, ATLA/AAJ, Birth Trauma Legal Associations, etc?
5. Does the lawyer represent plaintiffs (injured party) or defendants (negligent party)?
6. What are the fees? Does the lawyer work on a Contingency fee basis?
7. Who pays the cost of expenses such as medical expert testimony?
8. Is there a charge for a legal fee if there is no recovery?
9. Who will be responsible for expenses if there is no recovery?
10. Will the lawyer explain the legal process and all aspects of your case to you?
This is a video of an 18 month old that was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy. The child’s mother banked his cord blood and later utilized the stem cells to treat the damaged part of the brain. As you can see from the video the child has made a substantial recovery. Currently, this treatment is considered experimental and can be expensive but the results look very promising.
This video briefly discuses epilepsy and seizures including those caused by trauma at birth.
This is a very touching video of a child that sustained brain damage due to lack of oxygen at birth.
More information can be found at www.helpcarter.org
Last night Daniel Day-Lewis took home his second Oscar for best actor for his role as Daniel Plainview in the movie There Will Be Blood. Day-Lewis received his first Oscar for his 1989 role of Christy Brown, an Irishman that had cerebral palsy due to an injury at birth in My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown. Below is a clip from My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown.
Food and Drug Administration officials (FDA) stated yesterday that it received reports of at least one death among patients who received botox injections as well as a "a relative handful" of serious side effects in which the toxin spread beyond the injection site.
The most serious injuries occurred in children with cerebral palsy receiving treatments to alleviate spasms. The reason for this is believed to be that the children were receiving the toxin in higher doses.
Dr. John Thorp, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor of obstetrics reported that magnesium sulfate or as it is more commonly known, Epsom salt, may cut the rate of cerebral palsy in premature children by nearly 50 percent.
The findings were presented in Dallas to the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine as follows: magnesium sulfate or a placebo was given to 2,241 women going into early labor between 24 to 31 weeks. Although the magnesium did not prevent fatalities among the premature babies, 4.2 percent of the babies born to women given magnesium developed cerebral palsy, as compared to 7.3 percent of those born to women who got the placebo.
The question remains, why were the children born to mothers given magnesium sulfate less likely to develop cerebral palsy?
This remains unanswered, however, the results are promising and given the fact that magnesium sulfate is readily available in most delivery rooms and has common uses such as inhibiting premature labor and is given to women experiencing pre-eclampsia, to prevent them from going into eclampsia, and having a seizure, it is possible that in the future administering magnesium sulfate to mothers experiencing preterm labor will become the standard.
State medical board officials have issued formal reprimands for two obstetricians. The doctors allegedly mishandled two births that led to devastating injuries including cerebral palsy.
The doctors are protected from civil litigation by Virginia's Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Act. Under which the doctors will face no monetary penalty, no civil trial and the reprimands will not affect the doctor’s ability to practice medicine.
According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch these were the first such sanctions issued since the act was created in 1987.
This is a video demonstrating the benefits of massage therapy for individuals with cerebral palsy.
The following is a continuation of yesterday’s post of a child undergoing massage therapy for cerebral palsy.
The following is a clip of a child undergoing massage therapy for his Cerebral Palsy. At 14 months Max could not sit and his arms and legs were very stiff. For the past five months Max and his parents Nina and Bert have been working with Peter Walker to increase his flexibility and develop a more typical pattern of development. Over the Past five months Max has demonstrated much improvement. Keep up the great work.
* The Institute of Cellular Medicine (ICM) only uses stem cells from adults, umbilical cord blood and placentas NOT fetal or embryonic stem cells, as Legal and ethical issues may arise when fetal or embryonic stem cells are involved.
Cord blood stem cell therapy is in the early stages. Umbilical cord stem cells have been used world-wide since 1988. They have typically been used to restore the immune system of patients undergoing myeloablative chemotherapy.
In the brain, neuronal progenitor cells (present in umbilical cord blood) have been shown to differentiate into new tissue circuitry that is needed for a variety of specialized neural functions. Effective neural function, of any type, depends to a great extent on the establishment of precise physical pathways and connections that allow electrical communication between individual neurons and between entire classes of neurons; stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood have been shown to repair these types of connections.
Momentum is gathering for the introduction of stem cell therapy in the treatment of cerebral palsy, not only for children, but for adults as well. In fact, on December 20th of 2005, President George W. Bush signed a bill establishing a national umbilical cord blood program in which federal funding is provided for the collection and storage of cord blood for blood cell transplants. Now parents in the U.S. have increased hope for a higher quality of lives for their children. Additionally, real hope for adults who are suffering with cerebral palsy is now also found in the extensive research that is being conducted by a long list of scientists on adult brain plasticity and "restorative neurobiology."
Launched by Cord Blood Registry®, the Newborn Possibilities program offers free storage of newborn stem cells to expectant parents of babies with an increased risk of neurological impairment.
Strong preclinical data suggests a newborn's own cord blood stem cells can provide therapeutic benefit in treating brain damage. Cerebral palsy is the most common childhood cause of neurological and physical disability, diagnosed in 8,000 newborns each year, or 1.4 - 2.7% of live births. To date, newborn stem cells have been used in more than 6,000 transplants worldwide
For more information, expectant parents should call 1-888-CORD-BLOOD or visit http://newbornpossibilities.com
When a child gets diagnosed with cerebral palsy or erb’s palsy the question of where to go for the best treatment soon follows. Below is a list of the top pediatric hospitals compiled by U.S. News & World Report.
America's Best Children's Hospitals, 2007 Edition
Published by U.S.News & World Report
1. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
2. Children's Hospital Boston
3. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
4. Children's Hospital, Denver
5. Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, Cleveland
6. Texas Children's Hospital, Houston
7. Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
8. New York-Presbyterian Univ. Hosp. of Columbia and Cornell
9. Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Seattle
10. Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, Palo Alto, Calif.
11. Children's National Medical Center, Washington, D.C.
12. Columbus Children's Hospital
13. Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC
14. Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
15. St. Louis Children's Hospital
16. UCSF Children's Hospital, San Francisco
17. Childrens Hospital Los Angeles
18. Primary Children's Medical Center, Salt Lake City, Utah
19. Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.
20. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis
21. Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA, Los Angeles
22. University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, Ann Arbor
23. Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville
24. Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New Hyde Park, N.Y.
25. Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago
26. Miami Children's Hospital
27. Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, Minneapolis
28. Children's Medical Center Dallas
29. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
30. Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Tiantan Puhua Neurosurgical Hospital, one of the world's leading treatment centers for Parkinson's disease and strokes, recently announced a breakthrough in the treatment of Cerebral Palsy (CP) by introducing neural stem cells through a non-evasive procedure to 19-year-old Gabor Bocskai from Hungary.
The treatment works by introducing stem cells into the patient's spinal cord fluid (via Lumbar Puncture) which are then circulated directly to the brain. The success of this procedure makes Mr. Bocskai the first teenage European CP patient to see rapid improvement through stem cell therapy. Unedited videos taken before and after Mr. Bocskai's injections demonstrate the profound improvement in this 19-year olds battle to walk, write, focus his eyes, concentrate, and overcome the many other detrimental effects resulting from the CP he acquired at birth.
After the eight-week stem cell therapy program, Mr. Bocskai's experinced noticeable physical improvements including improved vision, increased eye focus and better concentration on one subject. He also reported more legible writing, enhanced muscle tone, the ability to sit up unsupported, improved speech and a new capability to walk and swim in an unassisted manner.
In fact, proir to the treatment, Mr. Bocskai was not able to walk independently, using a wheelchair for transportation. Within four months of the initial treatment, he stated that he was able to walk with the help of a walker and no other support, with increased maneuverability in his legs and torso.
This is a very promising treatment and one of many on the verge of being offered to the public.
The following is a video demonstrating the use of TheraSuit therapy on children with Cerebral Palsy.
TheraSuit serves as an exoskeleton supporting patients with neuromuscular disorders such as cerebral palsy. Patients wear it while undergoing an intensive exercise program conducted by specially trained physical therapists.