A world-first trial is being launched in the UK into whether drugs already on the market can prevent multiple sclerosis (MS) from worsening and even reverse the disabilities it causes.
The Octopus trial will investigate the potential benefits of using a number of different medications at once, in the hope of finding effective new treatments up to three times faster than if the medicines were trialled separately.
A hit song from the 1960s has been re-released in support of broadcasting legend David ‘Kid’ Jensen, who is living with Parkinson’s disease.
‘Big Day’, released by Luke and Blake in 1967, has been released again to raise money for Parkinson’s UK.The duo, David Capri and Stephen Stern, chose the charity in tribute to their close friendship with David ‘Kid’ Jensen, who was diagnosed with the condition in 2013.
The announcement that Liverpool and Manchester City are to trial a high-tech mouthguard for a new study into heading is the latest move in football’s efforts to tackle the mounting controversy about player safety. NR Times meets the creators of the revolutionary Protecht mouthguard
With the links between sports like rugby and football and head injuries causing later-life neurological problems becoming increasingly clear, such globally-loved sports are facing some huge challenges.
Played by global icons who are adored by millions, the emphasis is increasingly shifting onto what may await them further down the line, after a career during which they will undoubtedly sustain regular head impacts through heading the ball, colliding with other players or falling to the ground.
A community established to support independent case managers is expanding across the UK.
3HUB was created to help self-employed, independent case managers with both clinical and business-related aspects of running their own venture, while also providing valuable access to peer support through them becoming part of the community.
By bringing together case managers from across the country, 3HUB also provides a single resource for referrers to match the expertise of members of the community with their clients’ needs.
The national network, which has a sizeable membership in its native South East, is growing strongly across the UK, and recently added its first case manager in Scotland.
Concussion can be diagnosed using saliva, new research has found, paving the way for the first non-invasive clinical test for head injury which could be used in all levels of sport.
Building on previous research, which identified that the concentration of specific molecules in saliva changes rapidly after a traumatic brain injury, it has now been established - through a three-year study in elite rugby - that these ‘biomarkers’ could be used as a diagnostic test for sport-related concussion.
Using DNA sequencing technology, the research team tested these biomarkers in saliva samples from 1,028 professional men’s rugby players competing in English rugby’s top two leagues - the Premiership and Championship.
The results of SCRUM (Study of Concussion in Rugby Union through MicroRNAs) have for the first time shown that specific salivary biomarkers can be used to indicate if a player has been concussed.
A means to accelerate regeneration of neurons and reconstruct the neural circuit in the spine has been discovered, in a further breakthrough for spinal cord injury patients worldwide.
A nanobiomaterial, layered double hydroxide (LDH), has been proven to inhibit the inflammatory environment surrounding spinal cord injuries in mice, in research from Tongji University in Shanghai.
For the first time, the study was also able to identify the underlying genetic mechanism by which LDH works.
After seeing her son Max’s struggle to find socks to cover his orthotics, having lived with the effects of a perinatal stroke since birth, Steph Degodny set about designing some herself.
And from that desire to solve a problem for her own child, has emerged a thriving business making socks for children with disabilities across the United States, with a fast-growing presence in the mainstream market through what Steph terms the ‘inclusion revolution’.
Max & Me Gear now sells long socks in an array of designs - all of which have been confirmed as being ‘cool’ by their inspiration, Max himself - and are helping to transform the confidence of children and young people at formative stages of their lives.
Iconic songs are helping people living with dementia use their love of music to rediscover how to sing and dance.
The Music Makes Us! project combines singing and dance lessons with speech and language therapy and physiotherapy, and has engaged hundreds of people with dementia to use their love of music to re-learn lost abilities.
As well as seeing participants who couldn’t talk begin to sing to The Farm’s ‘All Together Now’, others with severe mobility problems began to dance to The Beatles.
Three new pioneering research hubs are being established to advance scientific discoveries into promising treatment options for millions of patients with life-threatening diseases.
The research facilities will help to form a national network of cutting-edge gene therapy innovation hubs, backed by £18million in funding to support the clinical development of new genetic treatments.
The innovation hubs - funded by LifeArc and the Medical Research Council (MRC), with support from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council - have been hailed as bringing fresh hope of breakthroughs for people living with one of the more than 7,000 genetic diseases that currently have no cure.
Three hospitals globally have enabled patients to continue their rehabilitation remotely through the use of groundbreaking rehab technology, which was donated for use by its creators.
The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN) in London, Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and Fondazione Don Gnocchi in Milan have all been given use of the Evolv Rehabkit, which allows the prescription of personalised telerehabilitation activities for people to complete remotely.
The initiative was a joint approach from medtech company Evolv, alongside Microsoft and ZOTAC.
