IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF LIFE

Living With Spinal Cord Injuries

At first, research in spinal cord injury seems an unlikely subject for the mission of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center (PBRC) – promoting healthier lives through research and education in nutrition and preventive medicine. Yet, vital work in this area is underway at the Center; work that links the PBRC’s mission to living with a spinal cord injury.

From the moment of injury, people who suffer spinal cord damage can face an extreme change in their ability to feed themselves, swallow effectively, and process nutrients through the stomach, intestines and colon. The movement of food through our digestive system and of nutrients into our bodies is primarily controlled by nerve signals to and from gut muscles, glands and organs. When these signals are disrupted by injury,individuals face daunting challenges.

Feeding tubes, physical therapy for bowel management, complications from gastrointestinal distress that can trigger life threatening bouts of high blood pressure, are among the list of life-defeating realities PBRC researcher Greg Holmes, Ph.D. (pictured above) is trying to overcome through research.

“This is not just a nutrition and health issue. It is also a dignity issue,” said Holmes, a member of the Center’s newest group, the Division of Nutrition and the Brain. “Quadriplegics must rely upon a parent, a spouse or a healthcare professional for daily nutrition, toileting and personal hygiene. Even persons who retain upper limb function must follow a strict nutritional regimen and still devote hours to daily personal bladder and bowel care.”

"The million dollar question," according to Holmes, "is what digestion-controlling pathways are damaged or destroyed by spinal cord injury? This is a puzzle, because the dominant nerve path to the stomach exits the brain too high above the spinal cord to be damaged by spinal injury. My hypothesis is that pathways also exist within the spinal cord that are essential in controlling digestive reflexes." According to Holmes, most research into spinal injury research focuses only on restoring nerves for moving and walking. “Nerve re-growth is a hot topic, but an effective treatment is, in my opinion, a thing of the future,” Holmes said, “There are 15,000 new cases of SCI [spinal cord injury] every year with an estimated 250,000-400,000 people with SCI in the US alone, and these individuals need to get on with their lives in the present.”

“Surveys of the injured population indicate that stable gastrointestinal function and the resulting freedom from daily bowel regimens are considerably more important than walking again.,” Holmes said, “Ours is the only lab in the U.S. looking at the possibility of recouping the natural digestive rhythm and reflexes following trauma.