May 31, 2000 Essays - Irregular Bones, Skeletal System,

May 31, 2000 Comm 101 Topic: New ways to aid in nerve regeneration. General Purpose: To inform Specific Purpose: To inform the audience about news techniques and mechanisms that aid in nerve regeneration. Central Idea Statement: The new techniques for nerve regeneration involving magnetic, electrical, and chemical mechanisms look very promising. INTRODUCTION I. The site is rather common: someone in a wheel chair unable to use their lower body, or worse, unable to function from their neck down because of an accident. You may even know one of these people. They all have one thing in common: spinal nerve injury. To the majority of us, one of the more famous and recent cases involving spinal trauma is that of Christopher Reeve, known to most of us as Superman. Reeve was riding his horse when he fell off, landed on the back of his head and twisted his neck. His spine was damaged near the second cervical vertebrae; that being two vertebrae away from the base of the skull. He states that after his accident he saw a handbook written in 1990 that didn't even mention anyone higher than [the fourth cervical vertebrae] because 70 percent of them didn't live longer than five days. I am very lucky my injury happened at a time when treatment and surgery had improved. Dr. Cotman from UCI, who worked with Reeve says that Reeve remains optimistic that a c ure is only a few million dollars away. II. Prior to the end of the Second World War, if a person survived a severe spinal cord injury, the injury still usually resulted in their early death. This was because of complications that accompanied the injury, such as infections to the kidneys and lungs. Though the development of new antibiotics has greatly improved life expectancy, until recently medical science had not been able to restore nerve function. III. According to researchers at the University of Alabama using data from the regional SCI Centers, there are 7,800 traumatic spinal cord injuries each year in the US. Yet these numbers do not represent accurate figures since 4,860 per year, die before reaching the hospital. Current estimates are that 250,000-400,000 individuals live with spinal cord injury or dysfunction; forty-four percent of these occur in motor vehicle accidents. More than half of these injuries occur to individuals who are single, and more than 80% of these individuals are male. IV. Within the last five years, a great many things have been happening in the area of neurological research. Research and treatment involving spinal and nerve injury has progressed considerably. In this speech I will inform you on the new and promising techniques that are currently undergoing testing for human treatment, in terminology that we will be able to understand. BODY I. The nervous system consists of the brain, spinal cord, and all branching nerves. There are two parts: the central nervous system, or CNS, and the peripheral nervous system, or PNS. The CNS, consists of the brain and spinal cord, while the PNS involves all the nerves that branch off from the spinal cord to the extremities. A. When the spine is crushed or bent in an extreme accident, the spinal cord inside is severely bruised and compressed, causing localized injury and death to many of the nerve cells and their fibers. Some of injured nerves fibers survive intact, but lose their electrical insulation, or myelin, over the very short distance of the injury zone. Nerve impulses are blocked at this point. 1. The myelin is the part of the nerve that actually transfers the electrical signal that enables your muscles to move when you want them to move. B. Nerves regenerate at the rate of about a cm a month. Keep in mind that not all nerves can regenerate (the spinal cord is a prime example) and if a nerve is too damaged or is severed it cannot come back C. Peripheral nerves will regenerate to a certain extent on their own, but they don't regenerate over very long distances. D. The big problem with treating spinal injuries is the fact that mature nerve tissue does not spontaneously regenerate. II. The three basic ways to treat nerve damage are: first, produce regeneration of the remaining segment of a nerve fiber, or make new connections on the other side of