MELBOURNE, Australia Diane Barbeler had a stroke on a Monday this month. The next day, she walked out of the hospital with only minor sensory changes in her right hand and foot. Barbeler owes her quick recovery to the tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, that she received within three hours of losing strength and control in her lower limb, says Atte Meretoja, a neurologist who helped diagnose her stroke at Australias Royal Melbourne Hospital. Patients like Barbeler, 66, gain a month of disability-free life for every 15 minutes saved in getting the clot-busting drug, according to research by Meretoja and colleagues published Friday in the journal Stroke. By quantifying the importance of speed, Meretoja and collaborators in Australia, Finland and the U.S. aim to inspire medical services to improve response time. The worlds fastest stroke services in Helsinki and Melbourne take an average of 20 minutes from the patients arrival at the hospital to start tPA treatment, Meretoja said. Most other centers in Australia, the U.S. and Europe take 70 to 80 minutes. The main delay in stroke is due to people not calling for help, said Meretoja, the lead author of the study and an associate professor of medicine … Continue reading →

It's been nothing but 100% improvement.It just continues to get better.Ive been avoiding doing stairways and I have to be real careful climbing in and out of equipment. I find myself being a lot more relaxed, not having the problems, not having the pain. I don't have the swelling in my knees that I used to have and it hasnt been waking me up at night. View my video testimonial here My name is Susan and Im 62 year old I just finished having my second PRP treatment and Im very, very happy with the results I can do all kinds of things I wasn't able to do beforeI believe my knee will continue to get better as the cartilage grows. Thank you! View my video testimonial here Many thanks to the Stem MD team for giving me the use of my hands back, pain free! Professional, courteous and compassionate, describes this team of caring people. To anyone considering this procedure, I say you will be amazed and thankful at the results. Lenita Brewer Ansonia, Ohio Thank you for giving my life and health back. The PRP treatment worked wonders and helped alleviate the pain. I highly recommend the anti-inflammatory … Continue reading →

A variety of research studies are underway at area medical schools and hospitals, from figuring out why lung transplants arent as successful as other organ transplants to whether stem cell therapy can help avoid amputations. Using drugs to broadly suppress the immune system helps the body accept organ transplants of hearts, livers and kidneys. But not so with lung transplants, new research at Washington University School of Medicine suggests. In what researchers call a surprising discovery, newly transplanted lungs in mice were more likely to be rejected if key immune cells called memory T cells were missing. Typically, memory T cells are knocked down with immunosuppressive drugs. Memory T cells patrol the lungs for invaders from the environment such as viruses and bacteria. When researchers infused memory T cells into mice with lung transplants, the cells released signals that encouraged the immune system to accept the lung. The research may help partly explain why lung transplants are not as successful as other organ transplants. Five years after lung transplants, only half are still functioning, figures show. Researchers want to discover how to target immunosuppression in lung transplants in a way that would help memory T cells thrive while eliminating other … Continue reading →

Updated: 03/19/2014 7:06 AM Created: 03/13/2014 4:35 PM KSTP.com By: Brandi Powell Good news for parents with children who have autism. A new Harvard study shows more high-functioning children with autism are going to college. KSTP reporter Brandi Powell spent some time at a local autism treatment center, and learned the latest on how the Minneapolis Somali community will soon benefit from a first-of-its-kind program. For the Minneapolis Somali community autism is a foreign concept. "We don't even have a word for autism in our language," Mariam Mohamed said. She's a project consultant. "This is something very hard for our community to understand." Without knowing what it is, how can you combat it? "So imagine how hard that is for mothers," Mohamed said. Recent research from the University of Minnesota diagnosed autism in one in 32 Somali children ages 7 to 9 in Minneapolis schools. Experts say the research shows the need for early intervention. Beginning April, help will be more available. "We're ready," said Julie Sjordal, St. David's Executive Director. "Our site is ready, we have a solid partnership." KSTP took a tour of St. David's autism treatment center in Minnetonka. Like many autism treatment centers they focus on … Continue reading →