Accidents happen, and there are different kinds of results that you can sustain if you are involved in one.
Let’s say you happen to be in a road accident, next thing you know is that you are in a hospital bed and you can’t feel your body from the neck to your toes.
You don’t just wake up having a feeling of lightheadedness, but you can’t feel anything on your entire body from the neck down.
It’s hard to picture yourself in that kind of situation of paralysis, but Kristopher Boesen is someone who experienced this life-changing moment.
Kristopher was involved in a road accident that landed him in the hospital where his parents received news that Kristopher would never have the ability to perform any body function from his neck down.
Now, as you can imagine, the parents were devastated, but an opportunity came along the way that could change his life situation.
Kris was offered an opportunity to go through a stem cells procedure that could potentially replace the damaged nervous tissue.
The procedure was just an experiment with no guarantees; it was not like taking Lysine that assures you of treating cold sores.
But Kris decided to take his chance because it was an opportunity that gave him a ray of hope of regaining his body functions once again.
Stem Cells Experimental Treatment
According to Dr. Liu, patients with spinal cord injury go through surgery, and the aim of the procedure is to restore the spine to its stable form but not to restore its sensory or motor function.
The study they were doing on the experimental treatment with Kris was to test if the procedure would yield in the improvement of the neurological function.
If the result worked well, it would enable patients to be able to use their arms and hands instead of being permanently damaged.
This would help patients who had several spinal cord damage to be able to work with their hands.
Now, in April 2018, Dr. Liu introduced 10 million AST-OPC1 cells in the cervical spinal cord of Kris.
The AST cells are eggs that are donated and fertilized in a petri dish.
The Results Of The Experimental Treatment
After 3 weeks of physiotherapy, Kris began to show signs of improvement that later on transplanted in him picking calls from the phone, operating a wheelchair, and even writing his name using a pen after 2 months.
There were significant improvements in his motor functions which are responsible for the transmission of messages used to create movement, from the brain to the muscle groups.
The difference that Kris saw was significant because he was not able to make any moves before the surgery, but afterward, he was able to make small movements and work on his own.
He has now regained significant independence in his movement.
After the results of the surgery were seen, Kris was happy to see that his fighting chance had yielded incredible results.
He has now become more hopeful that he is going to take any other chance to walk again.
The Future Of Stem Cell Therapy
Continued experiments are being worked on by doctors to see the possibility of patients recovering fully from paralysis.
Although there was a significant improvement on Kris’ situation, doctors have not promised that he would regain complete motor movements.
The steps that the doctors have made are significant, and the hope is to continue working on the stem cell research to solve the issue of paralysis.
The doctors have now teamed up with KSOM faculty departments and the University to continue the research on stem cell treatment.
Dr. Liu and his USC team are now more committed than ever to stay on the path of this life-changing research.
There are various ways in which stem cell research can be used other than in paralysis, and the research is going to yield more use in the long run.
Some of the disease that can be resolved or improved on include cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease.
