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Lumbar Decompression: Gold Standard for Spinal Stenosis

A report presented at EUROSPINE 2019 shows that decompression surgery remains the ‘gold-standard’ for lumbar spinal stenosis. A long-term study looking at decompression surgery versus stand-alone interspinous process devices in the treatment of spinal stenosis was reported at EUROSPINE 2019. The results demonstrate that even though implantation of a stand-alone interspinous process device (IPD) can [...]

2019-10-21T15:43:46+00:00 October 21st, 2019|

Royal Patron of Horatio’s Garden

Horatio’s Garden has just announced that Princess Eugenie has become the charity’s Royal Patron. Her Royal Highness will be supporting the charity’s vision of bringing thriving gardens to all the UK’s regional spinal injuries centres. As many people know, Princess Eugenie had corrective spinal surgery for her scoliosis when she was 12 years old at [...]

2020-02-11T19:14:00+00:00 October 14th, 2019|

Futuristic Intra-operative imaging

A new, alternative intro-operative technology for imaging patients, called the Loop-X was unveiled at the North American Spine Society (NASS) 2019 conference last week by a company called BrainLab. It is still in the testing stage and has not yet been approved by the FDA in America or any authority elsewhere in the world and [...]

2019-10-05T18:51:53+00:00 October 5th, 2019|

Cells in our bodies that repair damaged tissue have been discovered

Scientists at the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre have identified cells that can heal damaged tissue and may be used to help heal damaged tissues and treat diseases. These cells are found in large numbers all over our body and have most probably played an important role in the survival of both humans [...]

2019-10-02T15:40:41+00:00 October 2nd, 2019|

Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Funding by ‘Wings for Life’

Helsinki University Hospital in Finland has just announce that it has received significant funding from the Wings for Life Foundation to continue its research into spinal cord injury rehabilitation using Nexstim’s SmartFocusTM technology.  Nexstim Plc is a targeted neuromodulation company who are developing navigated, personalised and non-invasive brain stimulation systems for diagnostics and therapy for [...]

2019-09-28T00:50:33+00:00 September 28th, 2019|

Nanotechnology used to prevent spinal cord injury

Scientists at the University of Michigan have developed an injection, like an epi-pen, designed to be used at the time of trauma to spinal cord. The injection contains nanoparticles that can prevent the body’s immune system from overreacting to the trauma, potentially preventing some spinal cord injuries from resulting in paralysis. Any kind [...]

2019-09-26T13:40:23+00:00 September 26th, 2019|

Scorpion toxins, Wasabi and Chronic Back Pain

Researchers from the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) and the University of Queensland in Australia, have been studying how animal venoms and toxins affect the wasabi pain receptors in the body. The human body has lots of different nerve cell receptors and the ‘wasabi receptor’ is a specific receptor on pain nerve [...]

2019-10-21T15:51:26+00:00 September 23rd, 2019|

New Study: Management + Outcomes of Spinal trauma in East Africa

Outcome data and studies are constantly being looked at to try and improve the management and outcome of spinal trauma in high income countries like the UK. We know, for example, that the ‘time’ from injury to treatment is one of the key factors. You may have heard of the “golden hour”? The golden [...]

2019-09-21T13:58:59+00:00 September 21st, 2019|

US Study: awareness about Sacro-Iliac Joint dysfunction

‘Spinal News International’ (September 2019) reports on a survey carried on 1000 US women (aged 35 - 60) conducted by S-I Bone to help them better understand public awareness of sacro-iliac joint (SIJ) dysfunction as a major cause of low back pain. SIJ dysfunction is reported to account for 15 - 30% of all [...]

2019-09-20T16:20:48+00:00 September 20th, 2019|