Botox can help in the recovery of patients who suffered strokes
This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.
After his stroke, Francine V. Corso, a software engineer who worked in NASA's lunar module, was confined to his home from 1992 to 2001.
His left arm was twisted up, around your neck, making it difficult to put a blouse, and your fingers are so tightly that their screw nails are buried in the palm of your hand. When she finally learned to get up from his wheelchair, his left leg had contorted the "galloping" of many victims of brain damage - it pisava with your fingers down, struggling to prevent your foot girasse.
Now, with injections of botulinum toxin every three months, she says, "I am completely transformed - I say, I do volunteer work, often for art classes." His fingers are so relaxed that a manicure can now paint their nails with red.
The botulinum toxin, smoothed the wrinkles better known by the brand name Botox, has many medicinal uses, some official and others without approval. It helps victims of dystonia to recover control of spasmodic muscles, players who fight against excessive sweating to reduce the flow, and children with crooked feet to avoid surgery.
Use without approval
Its use in victims of spills is not certified - that is, it is not approved for that purpose by the Food and Drug Administration, U.S. agency that regulates medicines and new foods on the market. However, it is so widely accepted that Medicare and other insurers use their refund to arrive.
However, according to David M. Simpson, professor of neurology of the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and a recognized researcher of toxin, only about 5% of stroke patients who could benefit from Botox can.
General practitioners to inspect places of rest do not always know about the toxin, he said. Relatively few doctors are trained to apply the injections, which go much deeper than do the dermatologists to erase lines of expression. And the majority of neurologists have the habit of prescribing anti-spasmodic as Tizanidine and baclofen, which are oral and cheap, but that cause numbness and weakened all the muscles of the body, not just those that are in focus.
Corso, of 66 years, never heard about the treatment from his first neurologist, who used to call "Mr. Bad News," he told her family that she could die and that may never walk again. "I heard Dr. Max Gomez, the NBC," she said. "It was then that I came to town and found you."
In the classroom of Mount Sinai, with a broad view of Manhattan, Simpson is next to two broken down arms mounted on the chair together. Seems a pasty, but muscular, and is covered with stinging needles. Your partner is ruby and has nothing more than muscle, it is an anatomical model with all the skin and fat removed.
Difficult to find the muscles
Simpson, who receives funding from three manufacturers of botulinum toxin - Allergan, which manufactures the Botox; Solstice Neuroscience, which makes Myobloc, and Merz Pharmaceuticals, which produces the Xeomin - is teaching residents how to find the muscles of more difficult access, as the flexor brevis pollicus, which doubles the thumb, the pronator quadratus, which turns the pulse.
The arms of rubber have sensors that emit a "beep" when the tip of the needle reaches the correct muscle. Human arms are not "beep", of course, but Simpson had used a variant of this technology in just one hour before Corso.
Immediately before the first needle to sink, it has meant that visitors know what she thought of electromyography, which she calls "the bite".
"That," said Corso, who has nearly a meter and a half tall, "is what separates men from boys."
The syringe was connected to an electronic stimulator to a pulsed load - up to a tenth of - twice per second. When Simpson had believed that reached the muscle in question, he connected the device. If the correct finger begin to pulse in sync, he knew was right, and press the syringe. Otherwise, he moved the needle and tried again.
He did this several times in the arm of Corso, then in his leg. Within 45 minutes, Corso said his foot was coming to the floor more equally.
The toxin can not restore the use of muscles when the spill destroyed the brain region that controls them. However, patients look and feel better, and often find it easier to wear clothes, bathe and hold objects.
Mark Hallett, chief of the section of motor control of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, says using electromyography and ultrasound to inject patients.
"A large number of authorities believe that come close, is already good enough," said Hallett. "I do not agree. I think it is important to ensure that you are in the right place."
Corso also think so. For some time, she attended another neurologist, near his home in Fort salongo, Long Island, who injected the botox, but did not use electromyography, it counts.
It did not work so well. Now, she is a ride with a friend to the border of New York City, and then takes a car service to the hospital.
"It is far from Long Island," she said. "But it is worth."
Source: New York Times
This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.
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