Apple’s App Store, well known for its tight strictures and uptight policies regarding the iPhone applications it chooses to accept, has stepped in it this time. The Baby Shaker, a $.99 application for the iPhone that requires users to shake their phone in order to quiet crying babies, incited outrage from brain injury organizations and… Read More
Your Health Records Online – Smart or Downright Dangerous?
Over the last couple of years we have been hearing of the push to digitize health records, in hopes of streamlining a patients data for easy access across medical facilities. Yesterday the Mayo clinic announced a partnership with Microsoft’s HealthVault to launch the Mayo Clinic Health Manager, a tool that gives people the ability to… Read More
Kindle: Limiting Accessibility for those with Disabilities?
Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader has a feature that allows users to set it up so that it “reads” their books aloud. A handy application for those with disabilities that limit their reading capabilities, such as paralysis or blindness, this feature has surprisingly gained some heat. The Authors Guild, a organization that has been advocating for… Read More
Another Advance Towards Brain Injury Repair
Researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF have developed a way to reverse the age of adult stem cells (fibroblast cells), using microRNAs to effectively turn them back into embryo-like cells. While not quite a Benjamin Button scenario, these new findings have the potential to… Read More
From Tragedy Grows Brain Injury Awareness
The tragic death of Natasha Richardson has brought the need for traumatic brain injury (TBI) awareness into stark relief. As with many things in life, we tend to look around, look over, and look through dangers that haven’t directly touched our lives. Like the child whistling in the dark, we skim over the short news… Read More
A New Treatment for Spinal Cord Injuries – It Works!
Scientists with DaVinci Biosciences and Hospital Luis Vernaza have developed a way to effectively treat spinal cord injuries (SCI). Researchers found that injecting a patient’s bone marrow-derived stem cells (BMCs) into the spinal column benefited both acute and chronic SCIs. When a spinal cord is injured, there is hemorrhaging which leads to swelling and restricted… Read More