Paralysis

Michigan researchers have found the gene for a rare leg-weakening nerve disease, called hereditary spastic paraplegia, that slowly robs children of their ability to walk. As many as 20,000 Americans may suffer from the disease. The discovery should aid in diagnosis and possibly in the development of new treatments. There is no therapy now.

A preliminary study finds that scuba diving may help improve muscle movement, touch sensitivity and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in people with spinal cord injuries. The small pilot study, presented Saturday at the Paralyzed Veterans of America conference in Orlando, Fla., involved 10 wheelchair-dependent disabled veterans who had suffered spinal cord injuries an average 15 years earlier and who underwent scuba diving certification. Pre-dive tests checked the participants' muscle spasticity, motor control, sensitivity to light touch and pinpricks, plus depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

Scientists eased the paralysis of rats with spinal cord injuries by transplanting cells from adult mouse brains, an encouraging sign for developing human treatments, researchers reported. The paralyzed rats were given the mouse cells, called neural precursor cells, two or eight weeks after their injuries, according to the study in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

The last-minute deal on the debt ceiling may prevent a government default, but it does little to avert a perfect storm of economic problems that could push the nation toward a new downturn and more financial pain for millions of Americans. Instead of increasing confidence in the future, the agreement seems to have underscored the near paralysis in Washington — and the fact that no substantial new efforts are likely for dealing with unemployment, lagging consumer spending or a host of other problems that have been dragging the economy down.

Hikers who carry around heavy, poorly adjusted backpacks that put pressure on their shoulders risk developing a temporary but "frightening," paralysis of their arms, a doctor warned last week. Dr. Patrick Rosario said he first noticed a syndrome he called "trekker's shoulder" when he was hiking through the Himalayas in Nepal and came across a young man who could not move his right arm after a day spent walking down steep trails.

Scientists said last week that they had succeeded in regenerating nerve fibers from the human central nervous system for the first time, a step that could eventually lead to restoring some function to paralyzed limbs. The University of Miami researchers cautioned in their paper in the journal Experimental Neurology that the work has been done only in the laboratory and that it will probably be five years before researchers attempt to restore movement to paralyzed muscles.

A doctor at UCI Medical Center is using a drug made from one of nature's most powerful poisons to treat paralysis of the vocal cords, writer's cramp and other movement disorders. Dr. Daniel Truong, director of the hospital's new Parkinson and Movement Disorders Clinic, reported that his hospital was the first in Orange and Los Angeles counties to make the unusual treatment generally available.

A Mexican teen-ager shot near the Mexican border at Calexico last year by a U.S. Border Patrol agent faces the threat of paralysis because of bullet fragments lodged near his spinal cord, his San Diego attorney said. San Diego doctors are monitoring Eduardo Garcia Zamores, 15, to determine whether the bullet fragments are moving inside his body, said attorney Irwin M. Zalkin.

Immediate treatment with high doses of a drug found in nerve cell membranes can dramatically limit the degree of paralysis in people who suffer from spinal cord injuries, a team of Maryland researchers reported. Their study, published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, could help some of the 10,000 Americans who suffer spinal cord injuries each year. Most of the victims are men under 30 who are in automobile accidents.

Except for a few hours once a week, Nick Enriquez is the epitome of an optimist. He doesn't look back and ask, 'Why?' Why a young man in the prime of life is facing a life of paralysis. Why a simple day at the beach turned into tragedy. Why he can't walk. Why he can't play football. These would be normal questions for a 16-year-old high school athlete lying in a hospital bed with a broken neck. But Enriquez doesn't complain. For every negative, he finds a positive.

Cassandra Tang never learned to swim as a child and steered clear of the water. Then, when she was 22 years old, a gunshot wound paralyzed her from the chest down. Her fear of drowning intensified and she figured any chance of wading in an ocean or pool had vanished. On Sunday, Tan, now 40, was breathing nine feet underwater, coming up only to adjust her goggles and repeat the same phrase: "It's so amazing!" Tang was among a handful of participants at Deep Blue Scuba & Swim Center in Long Beach assisted by divers becoming certified by the Handicapped Scuba Assn.

You don't want to read it; I don't want to write it. It is horse racing, and already some folks are moving on to Page 3. If not the byline, the photo and headline might've been enough. It's a story about a jockey, but one unfamiliar to most in Southern California, to make it even less enticing. One who is living in San Pablo, wherever that is. He's a cousin of jockey Alex Solis, and he rode at Hollywood Park and Del Mar. So there's that. But he's here on a working visa from Panama and doesn't speak much English.

Kathleen O'Reilly of Re/Max Horizon in Elgin, Ill., should get a medal for showing houses. A recent client looked at 45 houses before deciding on one. And you guessed it: The buyer settled on the first one O'Reilly had shown him. The place had everything the buyer wanted, the Illinois agent says, but he looked at 44 others before feeling confident that he was getting the best deal possible. "Buyers have read a lot about foreclosures, short sales and how desperate sellers are," says Sarah Ritter, a Re/Max Properties agent in nearby Western Springs, Ill., who is working with a couple who have looked at more than 40 houses and have yet to make an offer.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi survived an important vote of no confidence by the narrowest of margins Tuesday but emerged with a severely weakened mandate that has thrown doubt on his ability to govern effectively. The 314-311 vote in the lower house of Parliament was a fresh demonstration of the billionaire politician's Houdini-like knack for escape. Although Berlusconi had insisted that he would prevail, the outcome was on a knife edge going in to the vote, even after days of intense behind-the-scenes negotiations.

At first glance, the military trials of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay appear to be winding down. One prisoner recently pleaded guilty to murder and other charges, and just one more, Noor Uthman Mohammed of Sudan, is charged with war crimes for alleged complicity with Al Qaeda. Of nearly 800 terrorism suspects brought to this remote U.S. base in southern Cuba over nearly nine years, 174 remain, most because of diplomatic troubles between Washington and their home countries rather than out of concern they would pose a security threat if freed.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let stand a record $83-million judgment in favor of a San Diego County woman who was paralyzed when her Ford Explorer rolled over and its roof partially collapsed. The justices rejected an appeal from lawyers for Ford Motor Co., who argued that the punitive damages were unfair and unconstitutional because the design of the sport utility vehicle met all the government and industry safety standards. The jury had been told, however, that Ford could have strengthened the roof and possibly avoided such a catastrophic accident had it spent an extra $20 per vehicle.

Usually it is a car wreck. But there are also wounds from gunshots, plane crashes and falls from horses, bicycles and scaffolding. Everybody's story is a little different. Kristi Reid recalls nearly every detail of those first few hours, including the name of her emergency room nurse. Sam Barukh did not even know for a month that he was paralyzed. What they and others in recovery share in common is the lifelong effect of a spinal cord injury.

Daniel Ruiz had not stood up in more than 10 years, since that Friday afternoon in 1983 when his motorcycle was run off the road and he awoke two days later to hear doctors say he would never walk again. Ruiz, now 26, is still a paraplegic, unable to control his legs or to feel anything from the chest down. But thanks to a device called Parastep, an experimental walker outfitted with electrical leads that attach to his legs and stimulate the muscles, Ruiz is able to stand and walk.

County supervisors approved a $1.5-million settlement Tuesday for a woman who was paralyzed during back surgery at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance. Shanay Bridges, 25, of Los Angeles, underwent surgery three weeks after a 2005 car accident and was not sufficiently advised of the paralysis risk, according to one of her attorneys, Richard Wood. Bridges, a mother of three, was studying to be a nurse but, since becoming a paraplegic, has abandoned her studies. She now requires the help of an aide to accomplish some everyday tasks, Wood said.

Aided by external wires that rerouted signals from their brains, two monkeys regained control of their paralyzed wrists and played a simple video game, scientists said Wednesday. The study, published in the journal Nature, could one day lead to devices that allow people to regain some control of their limbs after suffering spinal cord injuries and other forms of paralysis, scientists said.