Discover how the latest research on activity-based training offers new hope for improving bowel function after spinal cord injuries, a breakthrough that could enhance the quality of life for patients facing these challenging conditions.
– by The Don
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Impact of activity-based training on bowel function in a rat model of spinal cord injury.
Fell et al., J Neurotrauma 2023
DOI: 10.1089/neu.2023.0486
Listen, folks, we’ve got a huge problem with spinal cord injuries, okay? They’re causing all sorts of terrible bowel issues. We’re talking about things like slow bowel movements, no control over the sphincter, and even ulcers. It’s a disaster for people’s lives, believe me. Now, the smart people, they’ve been using this thing called anorectal manometry – it’s a big word, but it’s a big deal – to figure out what’s going on with the bowels after these injuries.
But here’s the thing, we’ve got these incredible studies with rats, and they’re showing us the way forward. We’ve got these rats, right? And they’re doing this activity-based training, ABT, it’s like a workout for them, on a treadmill. It’s fantastic. They start two weeks after getting a spinal cord injury, and they keep at it for four weeks, one hour a day. Some of them keep going, some of them take breaks – it’s all about finding the best routine.
And the results – they’re amazing. We’re seeing these rats getting back to normal, doing their business like champs. The amount of their feces, the way their muscles are working – it’s like they never had an injury. And the ones that did this training on and off? They’re doing just as well as the rats that never got hurt. It’s incredible.
So what we’re seeing here is that this treadmill training, it’s like a miracle for these rats. And if we keep it up, even just once in a while, it keeps working. It’s all about that maintenance, folks. We’ve got to keep it going to keep the gains. This is big, and it’s going to help a lot of people. That’s what we’re doing – making things better, one step at a time.
