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NEWS:
A Muscle Protein Promotes Nerve Healing
Typically, damaged nerve fibres of the central nervous system (CNS) in the brain, the optic nerve and spinal cord don't have the ability to regenerate. One of the pivotal reasons is that nerve fibres don't produce any proteins that are necessary for their regeneration, or that they don't produce enough of those proteins. The team at the Department for Cell Physiology headed by Professor Dietmar Fischer showed that, under certain conditions, a protein is formed in injured nerve cells of the CNS that had previously only been described in muscle cells. In experiments, the muscle LIM protein promoted the regeneration of damaged nerves. The research team published their article in the journal Cell Reports on 22 January 2019.
No therapy for clinical applications as yet
Injuries or diseases of nerves in the central nervous system result in lifelong disabilities, such as paraplegia caused by a
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Ingenious Approach In Orthopedics Offers Heroic New Role For Ordinary Body Fat
An exciting, FDA-cleared medical technology representing a new procedure for orthopedic patients has come to Reston, Virginia and the greater Washington, DC area. In this ingenious, minimally-invasive system called Lipogems, a patient's own body fat is easily removed from the belly or "love handles." The fat (clinically-known as adipose) then is specially processed before being injected to injured or damaged joints. This "repurposed" body fat helps support healing for orthopedic issues.
The Lipogems technology, which restores crucial cushioning for damaged tissues, can be administered both as a stand-alone option to major, invasive surgery and in combination with it.
At present, Lipogems is only available from a select few, highly-rated medical providers in the United States. In Reston, the provider is the highly-respected Virginia Spine Institute. Leading VSI's local introduction is D
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Rutgers Study Uncovers Cause Of Bone Loss In Joint Implant Patients
Rutgers researchers have discovered the long-sought reason that many people with joint replacements experience harmful inflammation and bone loss.
Their finding, published in Nature Materials, may pave the way for new therapies to reduce pain and prevent the need for follow-up surgery.
As many as 15% of joint replacements will fail, often requiring revision surgery to replace the implant. A major contributing factor is microparticles released from the prosthetic devices — known as “wear debris” — which are thought to promote inflammation, leading to pain, disappearance of bone tissue, loosening of the implant and ultimately failure of the implant to affix to the bone.
But, until now, the specific pathways through which these particles promote inflammation have been unclear. The Rutgers study found white blood cells, called macrophages, respond to the particles as if they were harmful
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FOTO's CMS-Designated Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) Provides Rehab Therapists Extensive Choice In Measure Selection
Focus on Therapeutic Outcomes, Inc. (FOTO), a provider of web-based patient outcomes management solutions, risk-adjusted functional assessments, and predictive analytics, is pleased to announce its endorsement as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for 2019.
"This QCDR designation further solidifies FOTO as the leading outcomes management solution in rehab therapy," says Christopher Hayes, Chief Technology Officer for FOTO, Inc. "FOTO's experience driving compliance for physical therapists (PTs) and occupational therapists (OTs), long-standing history as a CMS endorsed registry, and commitment to patient outcomes, makes FOTO the system of choice for trusted data collection and reporting for CMS payment programs."
The QCDR enables PTs and OTs to submit MIPS (Merit-based Incentive System) data for the 2019 reporting period. FOTO
