Healing the wounded

A couple of weeks ago I was in clinical practice as a home care nurse. As a part of National budget cuts, nursing clinics have been started in all the local centres for the elderly and infirm.

These clinics have the potential benefit of helping those who can walk or transport themselves so that they experience a sense of "normalcy" and avoid being isolated. It is also cheaper than having a nurse driving around all day.

One of the major issues faced here are leg ulcers. A condition where because of either bad circulation or trauma, ulcers appear on the patients lower legs (chins). This is very painful and often ends in a long healing process. Some patients have these ulcers for years, healing one then getting another or repeatedly opening the old one.
Because of the nature of the healing proces the wound is actually preventing itself from healing properly. After an initial surge of coagulants and blood to the wound the body begins to produce fibrin to make a scab over the area. In cronic leg ulcers, this temporary "shield" meant for keeping the area moist on the inside but dry and hard on the outside, just sits in the wound and gets in the way of the new tissue. Traditionally this is scraped away by a nurse and the wound is filled with a wet gel to inhibit the production of new fibrin. But the gel is also a very hospitable place for bacteria to grow, thus increasing the risk of infection. On top of that the body also produces certain proteins that inhibit regrowth after some time. Thus making the wound a stagnant mess.

After treating several of this ulcers, I began to recall something I'd seen in one of my podcasts. A new compound that was meant to inhibit the body's production of inflammation proteins and speeding up recovery tremendously.

The compound is called Nexagon and after an initial clinical test has been shown to speed up healing 6x. It also seems help close the wound completely, so recurring ulcers don't come back.
At the moment the company making it is doing their second clinical trial so this is still something to look out for in the future. The company is called CoDa Therapeutics Inc.

I for one am really looking forward to something like this coming to marked.

                               Make informed choices

Standing Tall

It has been a while since I last posted anything here. I have loads of ideas and want to share it with all of you. But my personal life has demanded most of my attention this summer, so here we go again.

Recently I have been in practice at an Orthopedic Ward, a Trauma Ward. Here all the Patients who have broken any part of their body's bonestructure get admitted after going through the Emergency Room.
A huge number of them have surgeries to fix the broken bones and realign them. This is very traumatic surgery, since the surgeons offen have to break the bone to set it back in position again.

Seeing these patients with casts and crutches has made me think just how far we've come with being able to get people back to their lives, instead of being sick. We used to have people with broken legs lying in a bed until it was completely healed. Meaning you where bedridden for up to 8-10 weeks.
Now they are home within days and getting their routines back.

Much worse of are the people who end up with spinal cord injuries. Sudden loss of limb function is not easy. But getting them on their feet has so far been impossible. So we've put them in wheelchairs and just said "roll".
The new technologies being developed by the military, intended to add substantial strength to otherwise ordinary soldiers. Has proven a great resource for the field of rehabilitation.

We are taking baby steps, but the tecnologi is here and getting better daily.

What I'm talking about is the evention called eLegs. It is an exosceleton that mimics the motion of walking simply by assessing the motion the wearer makes. This has all sorts of positive benefits for a patient.

Getting the muscles activated actually limits and withholds some of the muscle mass that you loose from not using the limb. Your digestive system is essentially triggered by body movement, so indegestion will be a problem no more.
The major benifit is that with this system, you would be able to live a life fairly similar to the one you had before the accident.

I can't wait to see what this turns into and how soon it will be comercially available. I think we'll see this in rehabilitation facilities very soon.

Thank you Cali Lewis for showing me this.

              Make informed choices.