Innovations for a Healthier You

Scientists and health researchers are making discoveries and advancing knowledge at an ever-increasing rate, with each advancement inspiring still more exploration. New knowledge about health, advances in data analysis, integrated technology, and new materials, plus an amazing synergy created by the ability to collaborate with a wide variety of colleagues around the globe, have all contributed to the flurry of discovery. Here are some inspiring examples of current research.

"Cool" New Treatment for Spinal Injury

In September of 2007, millions of television viewers were horrified to watch American football player Kevin Everett suffer a terrible injury. His neck was broken, with vertebrae crushed and the spinal cord intact but compromised by the injury, and further threatened by post-traumatic swelling. The prognosis would almost certainly have been permanent paralysis.

But a new, aggressive combination of immediate cooling of the body to prevent swelling, injection of steroids, and emergency surgery to decompress the nerve may have given Everett a much more promising future. Following a new protocol, his doctors used a saline solution to quickly reduce his body temperature by 8 degrees Fahrenheit (-13.33 degrees Celsius). Within a week, he'd gained some sensation and was making voluntary movements in his hands and legs. A month later, there were reports that he was standing briefly while using a walker, moving himself in a wheelchair, and able to open and close both hands. It's not yet clear what Everett's ultimate recovery will be, but he's already made amazing progress.

The treatment Everett received is still experimental and not yet widely available — there are still too few hospitals with the level of trauma care needed to treat these injuries, and the cooling therapy has not been 100 percent effective. But progress such as Everett's offers hope and encouragement for researchers and their patients.

Just Like in the Movies

Candace Lombardi, writing for c/net News, recently reported a breakthrough in the design of artificial arms and other limbs. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, working as part of a team that includes universities, private firms, and government agencies, is developing a mechanical arm that more closely duplicates the movement and sensory perception of a biological arm. In recent lab tests, a wearer was able to direct a mechanical arm to do intricate tasks, such as maneuver a small object with precision or handle fragile objects without breaking them. The arm was attached to the healthy nerves of the chest and was able to give the wearer a sense of contact and enough control to allow for the minute adjustments necessary to carry out the tasks.

Lombardi likened the new prosthetic to the one worn by Luke Skywalker in the film The Empire Strikes Back. But instead of helping future heroes save the galaxy, today's prosthetics, with funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, are being designed for injured war veterans.

Taking the Sting Out of a Mosquito Bite

If mosquitoes could not get or transmit the plasmodium pathogen, people would not get malaria, saving millions of lives each year. But how to build a better mosquito?

In the past, genetic researchers treated mosquito eggs by changing the genes so the resulting insects were blocked from getting the infection. However, the mosquitoes failed to pass along the gene reliably enough to offer hope that this approach would result in a practical solution.

A group of researchers at Johns Hopkins University recently conducted a second test during which mosquitoes were fed infected blood instead of healthy blood, and therefore passed along the gene more reliably. Still, the rate at which the new trait spread in the mosquito population was not enough to make this approach seem really useful.

But Smithsonian magazine recently reported that the California Institute of Technology has identified a "driver" gene in fruit flies that seemed to make a trait dominant and help it spread more quickly in subsequent generations. Now the researchers are looking for a way to add a driver gene to the mosquito treatment. They hope perhaps within five years to have an improved and genetically influential mosquito ready to go.

Changing Health Care Roles

Adult children increasingly are facing a new dilemma — how to care for aging parents who want to remain independent, but who may have physical and/or mental conditions that make continued independence a challenge. Medical advances have helped aging parents live longer and, in many cases, more active lives, but these advances have also added to the worries of adult children who need to somehow monitor their parents' safety and medical condition while respecting their dignity and desire to remain in their own home.

Several companies and researchers at a number of universities, both in the United States and in other countries, are working on packaging new technologies to address this very issue. These technologies include motion detectors; cameras connected to the Internet; "smart phones" that can relay information to monitors, whether at a health care agency or directly to the caregivers; panic buttons; and monitors that record blood pressure and other vital signs into integrated systems that help detect problems or danger as soon as possible, send the appropriate help, and allow both seniors and their caregivers to relax from the worry of medical concerns such as debilitating falls.

Robin L. Yeager is a State Department foreign service officer currently assigned to the Bureau of International Information Programs. Her writing assignments have covered a broad range of topics, as have her overseas assignments, which have taken her from Transylvania to Timbuktu.

The opinions expressed in these commentaries do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.