New procedure to gain back bowel control
Doctors working with spina bifida patients have found that by moving a nerve from the lower leg to the bowel area, they were able to gain back full control of both their urinary and bowel. The operation typically allowed some patients with spinal injuries to vigorously scratch an area on their leg to get their bowel working, but by adding this nerve to new procedures allows both spinal cord injury patients as well as spina bifida patients full control over their urinary and bowel. This is great news to almost all spinal cord patients which have to either straight cath or use a Foley bag for urination and have a nurse come in to clear out the bowel and stimulate it to clear out the lower intestine. It is too early to tell if this procedure can be used for other parts of the body, but there looks to be great promise in the bonding of nerves to specific parts of the spine to gain control again. (Source TheDenverChannel.com)
A pilot study showed that the procedure appeared to be safe, but not many patients have had this done to show the long term effects of this surgery. Hopefully other doctors will try to duplicate the work in their labs to see not only now well this works but where else it can be used. For quadriplegics it would be great news if they could move their arm based on moving other areas of the body. While this is definitely a work around to the problem of why nerves don’t repair themselves in the spine, it gives doctors ideas on what can be done. There is always room for medical procedures that are safe, effective, and give the patient back movement that had been lost because of an accident or brain damage.
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