(New Zealand has over 5000 people confined to wheelchairs resulting from spinal cord injuries)

A medical team in Ecuador, using methods in some ways similar to proposed New Zealand trials, has achieved for all of the  eight people confined to  wheelchairs,  improvement in muscle function and feeling.

Some have regained ability to walk with assistance.

The report just received by the Spinal Cord Society of New Zealand (SCSNZ), describes the clinical trial of spinal cord injury treatment

The trials used the patients’ own bone marrow cells and patients received the treatment over the past 15-24 months.

Four of the patients in the trial had chronic spinal cord injury and had been paralysed and confined to wheelchairs for periods of between 6 to 22
years and four had recent spinal cord injuries.  People with chronic spinal cord injury do not normally show any improvement after
1-2 years but those with recent injury can show moderate improvement in the first year after the injury.

All of the patients showed improved results in assessment of their quality of life.  Improvement in control of bladder function also occurred
in some patients.

Noela Vallis, Chair of the New Zealand Spinal Cord Society, said the Ecuadorian trials used the patients’s own bone marrow cells,
and SCSNZ has been developing plans for related trials in New Zealand. 

“However, our trials will begin with use of the patient’s own olfactory mucosa (cells taken from the upper nose) and later with addition of trials using their own bone marrow cells,” she said. Ms Vallis said the Society has received heavy inquiries since it announced the planned New Zealand trials last week. She has asked that people in wheelchairs email Dr Faed rather than call. “He has become a bit overwhelmed by calls for people wanting to volunteer for the trials,” said Ms Valllis.

“The evidence for this concept of using the patient’s own cells, is becoming so compelling now that we are sensing an impatience to get on with it,”
she said.

The Society places its final submission to the Multi Regional Ethics Committee on April 21 and once final approval is received, the trials will get under way.

The Society also needs to raise $2million as quickly as possible, to fund the trials and subsequent rehabilitation programmes. Ms Vallis said she is confident that many of the 5000 New Zealanders confined to wheelchairs will soon experience a dramatic improvement in their quality of life.

Ms Vallis said donations for the trials can be made by:

• telephoning 0900 spine ( 77463),
• by going on line to the Society’s website
• or by depositing funds at any branch of the Westpac bank

TVNZ News 18/03/2009

The experimental procedure, which has only been attempted in a few countries, uses the patient’s own stem cells to try to repair the severed spinal cord.

Some say the procedure will offer a ray of light for the paralysed, but others warn the procedure is still in its early stages to be sure.

Scientists have been working on this project in a purpose built lab for the past six years in New Zealand, growing cells from human bone marrow.

But in patient trials they will be using what’s called olfactory cells, from high up in the spinal patient’s own nose.

They are the only nerve cells in the body which continually replace themselves.

Dr Jim Faed, the clinical research trial leader, says there can be regeneration and repair in the spinal cord induced by those cells.

Pending final ethics committee approval, doctors will recruit 12 spinal patients for phase one surgical trials at Dunedin Hospital.

It’ll be a two-stage surgical process, using the patients own adult stem cells.

In the first stage, one surgeon will remove slivers of cell tissue from the patient’s nose.

Then a neurosurgeon will open up the patient’s spine and re-plant those cells into the spinal cord injury site. Results would take months to show.

Caution sought

But Faed is cautious about the results of the trial.

“Are patients going to get up and walk a month later? No, that’s not going to happen, it’s not that dramatic,” says Faed.

A team in Portugal has already carried out over 100 such operations.

Dunedin neurosurgeon Grant Gillett has flown to Lisbon twice to observe the surgery and patient recovery.

“It led me to believe that there was some measurable benefit, it was subtle, but it seemed measurable,” says Gillett.

Clinical trials on 69 patients have shown no major adverse side effects, aside from post-operative pain.

One or two have reportedly regained movement down to thigh level, while others have regained limited bowel and bladder function.

But doctors concede most have had only slight improvement and some none at all.

“This is an experimental procedure. If you had it, the people doing it for you could not guarantee you any benefit,” says Gillett.

Those who are sceptical of the procedure, like Dr Shaun Xiong, who heads the Burwood Spinal Unit in Christchurch, has concerns that it’s just too experimental.

The Burwood Spinal Unit specialised in spinal injuries for a nation that is rated as leading the world in spinal injuries, where one person is paralysed every five days.

“I believe at this stage the science is not quite there for the clinical trial, particularly if people jump in and offer it as a treatment option,” says Dr Shaun Xiong, of the Burwood Spinal Unit.

He also has concerns Dunedin Hospital doesn’t have the expertise to treat spinal patients.

But one of the patients at Burwood thinks otherwise.

Courtney Edmonds, a tetraplegic patient, who has been paralysed since a car accident four years ago, is supportive of the procedure.

“I think just to be able to move my fingers again would mean far more to me than actually walking,” says Edmonds.

Courtney says any risk is one he’d be prepared to take.

Noela Vallis, of the NZ Spinal Cord Society, says the procedure may have its benefits, as she believes there are too many people suffering who don’t have to.

Vallis set up the NZ Spinal Cord Society, which now has its own research lab at Otago University.

But the green light has yet to be given for the procedure and the decision is still being mulled over.

The Regional Ethics Committee has given conditional approval but is meeting next month to consider giving final approval.

If that’s granted, a fundraising campaign will be needed to fund the first 12 operations.

Then they’ll start recruiting patients, looking first for patients with thoracic spine injury that’s chest height before the first operation at Dunedin Hospital hopefully by mid-year.

As with all phase one clinical trials, the first operation is purely to establish if it’s safe and whether there is any benefit to be gained.

 Source: TVNZ

Clinical trial operations on the first twelve New Zealanders with chest/stomach level spinal injuries, are scheduled to begin this year.

The Spinal Cord Society of New Zealand, a charity which has been funding research into cells that have shown potential to repair spinal cords, has conditional approval to start the trials on volunteer New Zealanders with spinal injuries

The Society will submit additional information requested to the April 21 meeting of the Multi-Region Ethics Committee in Wellington and is confident of receiving full approval, ending an effort of almost three years to satisfy the requirements of the Ethics Committee.

In the meantime, other programmes overseas have convinced a growing number of medical experts that an effective treatment for spinal cord injuries is getting much closer.

The procedure to be applied in New Zealand has been carried out overseas in countries such as Portugal, Italy, Japan and China on well over 100 people with few negative side-effects and varying degrees of improvement for each patient that has included bowel and bladder re-function, through to extra feeling and movement in limbs.

“The results are widely varied in different patients, but an important factor is that there have been few negative side-effects,” said Noela Vallis, Chair of the New Zealand Spinal Cord Society.

The procedure involves extracting tissue from a volunteer’s own olfactory tissue in the nose and inserting this into the injured area of the spinal cord.

Ms Vallis said the procedure offers no controversy over the source of cells because it involves a transfer of  the patient’s own cells.

“It’s similar to a skin graft, so there is no need for complex anti-rejection drugs,” she said.

Ms Vallis  said there is high level of  positive international interest in the research the society has been doing at its laboratory at the University of Otago Centre for  Innovation with the staff of Otago Medical School.

“While doctors in other countries have actually made a  start with these  procedures, we have made use of the delays here, to continue studying the behaviour of human cells in our lab,” she said.

“We are probably ahead of other countries in this knowledge,” she said.

Dr Jim Faed, the cell biologist and haematologist who manages the Society’s research programme and who will lead the clinical research team to undertake the trial operations, said there is still much to learn about the cell behaviour.

“The clinical trial we have planned, and the expected future trials, will help advance that understanding,” he said.

“There is a high level of confidence among the medical team, that our first trial is the right step to take in moving to human research. The trial will go further than research overseas and collect important information about the mechanisms for improvement,” he said.

Dr Faed said if the operations confirm results found overseas while clarifying other key points identified by the clinical research team, the team will be well placed to carry out trials of enhanced procedures.

Fundraising challenge

Another major hurdle the Society needs to overcome is a $2 million budget for the trials over the next year or more.

Ms Vallis said funds have been promised from a number of sources but essentially the society has no Government backing.

“We will need to attract community backing. We have set up a website and an 0900 donation line,” she said (0900 SPINE or 0900 77463)

“We are poised to bring possibly the greatest medical breakthrough in a century and we are doing it as a charitable organisation,” she said.

The Society was formed by Ms Vallis in 1991 when she decided to seek a cure for her late husband’s spinal injury. Following  his death she has continued to lead the Society’s effort.

“I might be in my seventies, but I now believe it will be in my lifetime that people will go into hospital with a spinal injury and walk out weeks or months later just as though they’d experienced a broken leg,” she said.

“We will do all we can to ensure the knowledge we have gained, can be available to New Zealanders as soon as possible. But we will need financial support,” she said.

ENDS

For further details:

Email tony@tonyedmonds.com

OR call Noela Vallis on 07 888 1728

OR call Dr Jim Faed on (03) 470 9364 mobile 0275 404 836

Steve Kerr, owner of Homesell Wellington, is also bringing professional after-school care to the region. He is pictured with SKIDS director, Bev Parsons at Wadestown Primary School, the first school to contract the service.

The after school care service, “Safe Kids In Daily Supervision’” (SKIDS), will expand into Wellington and Horowhenua regions this year.

The national office has announced that Wellington businessman, Steve Kerr, has secured a regional franchise to serve schools in the regions.

Mr Kerr said he intends to have SKIDS operating in 20 schools within 12 months and match the national expansion of the SKIDS chain which has been growing at a rate of two per month.

He said the service will be competitively priced and affordable for working Parents.

The first school to have the service will be Wadestown Primary School.

“The demand from schools is driving the service. The real secret will be to find the right people to run each school programme,” he said.

He said the current World recession will have no real effect on the expansion of the service because it can help both mothers and fathers to stay in employment knowing their children are getting the best care and supervision

Mr Kerr said most schools are on the lookout for a service which applies professional disciplines to after-school care.

“Many get by with volunteer Parents who can only help out as long as long as their own circumstances don’t change.

“This service has a splendid reputation for returning rent to schools for the after-hours use of the property, and seeing children improve in their grades and their health.

“The service is mostly to do with giving children a balance of adequate study, rest, exercise and nutrition in that couple of hours before Parents finish work and take their children home.

“A significant benefit has proven to be the homework routine which sometimes does not happen when children are left unsupervised until mum and dad get home from work. And this reflects in improved grades with many SKID children.”

Mr Kerr said, as a father of five children he knows the importance of establishing daily routines for children and helping them to sustain them.

“My own experiences as a father made me realise how important this two or three hour period of the day is for a child’s later life,” he said.

He said the service will expand through Wellington via a franchise network and he will work with SKIDS national office in the selection of franchisees.

“They told me if I don’t see a genuine passion for caring for children in the first meeting, to not bother about a second meeting. I think this is the right advice.”

Mr Kerr previously established the real estate advisory company Homesell in the Wellington region. This company mentors private house owners in the sale of their own homes.

Someone photocopying his or her bare backside on the photocopier at the company Christmas party is usually a very short-lived humorous event, says employment advocate, Mark Nutsford.

“The aftermath is often a serious blot on an employee’s service record and a total distortion of the person’s real character,” said Mr Nutsford..

 Mr Nutsford’s company, Employment Relations Consultants, is now starting to experience a lift in calls following company Christmas break celebrations.

“But to keep it in perspective, I think we’ll receive about 100 calls over the next month and they will be the cases where there has been an irrevocable breakdown of relationship of some kind.

“I expect there will be 10 more for every one of those cases, where a quiet word in  a sober environment settles things down and people get on with business again.”

He said the most common example which leads to a termination of employment is where an employee tells him  “I got drunk and told the boss what I really thought of him.”

“This is the speech that leads to the breakdown of trust and a parting of ways.”

“Another common issue is when employers of  “blue collar” skilled people supply unlimited amounts of booze and fighting breaks out.

“I represented a young man recently who was regarded highly in his company but got involved in a fight, the details of which he couldn’t even remember, because he was so smashed. I was able to argue with some success to his employer that the responsibility was partly his; he dropped down a large amount of booze with no rules, regulations, or even some friendly advice before they got started.”

Mr Nutsford  said theft charges are also often laid against employees after a Christmas party and the scenario is nearly always  the same:

“It goes like this.

“One; everyone is having a great time and company has paid for the booze.

“Two: the boss thinks everybody has had enough and calls things to a close

“Three; not everybody agrees with him and they start to talk about taking the party somewhere else.

“Four; They take some of the company’s surplus grog with them because they think it’s their property anyway because they’ve worked hard all year..

“Five; the management takes exception, isolates “culprits” and lays theft charges.

“It’s so common and so easily avoided if people just use a little forethought,” said Mr Nutsford.

Sales reps are also vulnerable if they drive company cars home from a company function and are apprehended for blood alcohol excess.

“In these cases, the company often lose otherwise highly productive people who would not have been lost with better planning again,” said Mr Nutsford.

Sex also becomes a complication at company celebrations.

“Hidden desires pent up for months in a sober office environment, can lead to mutually consenting sex between adults in the toilets, on the boss’s desk without the boss necessarily being present, or anywhere. I’ve been amazed at the locations where sexual desire knows no boundaries,” said Mr Nutsford

“And a bonk between consenting adults on company premises is not really a criminal offence but some do lead to a loss of reputation which links to respect and authority in the workplace. Again, I think we get a very small percentage of these. Many times more would be settled by a quiet word or a  confidential meeting,” he said.

He recalls a recent case of one senior  manager at a company Christmas party taking a liking to a younger person employed in the same company. While sexual activity didn’t eventuate, the

behaviour at the Christmas party lead to a breakdown of professional trust with the senior employee’s superior and termination was negotiated.

Another senior employee of a large company “had a lapse of judgement” and visited some porn sites  which resulted in a virus which crashed the company’s entire network.

Mark represented the employee in termination discussions.

“But in this case, we were able to mend the bridges. The employee was otherwise highly valued and it would have been very difficult to replace such skill and experience in one person. We managed to negotiate salary increase and holiday concessions resulting in relief for both parties.

Mr Nutsford said he has some fundamental advice for both employees and employers:

Employees

1. Plan your exit from the company function. Don’t drive if you intend to drink.
2. Get advice on moderating alcohol intake so that you don’t make “the finest speech you ever regret” to a boss or colleague.
3. Remind yourself that you’re still at work and a moment’s indiscretion can tarnish a lifetime’s career.

Employers

1. If you want to increase your chances of losing good people, throw a lot of booze at them without any advice on timing, transport, or expected behaviour.
2. Lead by example in behaviour.
3. Be clear on what the company is supplying and not supplying.

Mark Nutsford, managing director, Employment Relations Consultants in Auckland

For further details: telephone Mark directly on 0274 627 543.

www.wehelp.co.nz

On July 10. when the first villas will finally be put up for sale.
The Vision Bay of Islands development will cost around $50 million and is expected to be completed over the next four or five years in several stages. The current plan on the 4.7ha site will have 150 units and an estimated population of 250-300.

Eight villas have been completed and will be followed by a further six, probably later this year.
A central community zone will be built next year and will include social areas, café. gym, pool, library and consulting rooms.
Peter Bourke, managing director of Vision Senior Living, said July 10 would be “a really great party, marking the end of seemingly endless legal obstacles”.

He paid tribute to Dorothy Corkill, the village’s first and so far only resident.
“Dorothy has patiently waited for neighbours to arrive and we will all be so pleased for her,” said Mr Bourke.
“She has been serene and accommodating throughout the past three years.”
The company has been working on the Kenkeri site since 2004 but problems with a joint venture partner stalled the development. Court proceedings have resulted in Vision becoming the single owner.
Vision Senior Living has two villages in Auckland, one in Hamilton and Papamoa.

Units are sold as occupational rights under the Retirement Villages Act, with Vision serving as the manager.
Last year, Vision confirmed a contract with David Reid Homes (Northland) to build the villas.

Thanks to the Northland Age for this article.