Illinois Boy With Cerebral Palsy Helped by Stem Cells

New Year Gets A Kick Start From Stem Cell Treatment

The new year is already past us, but it looks to be a promising year for Dalton Rogers-Ford, age 4 of Pearl City, Illinois. Dalton, suffering from cerebral palsy went to Dusseldorf, Germany for treatment using stem cells from his own bone marrow.

Since being diagnosed with cerebral palsy at the 18 months old, Dalton has been struggling. However, his mother heard about the Xcell Center which treats children for cerebral palsy using their own stem cells. It wasn't easy, but Nikki Rogers, Dalton's mother raised the money through multiple fundraisers. This is a nice story in itself-- that all of the friends and family and community helped pitch in to make the treatment a reality. However, the best was yet to come...

The treatment according to Mom:

To people who don’t know Dalton, the changes may be subtle, but to his mother, his teachers and family, the changes “are huge.” Nikki said she has no doubts that she did the right thing for her young son. The doctors in Germany could not give her an exact progression for improvements. It is day by day.

Dalton is standing without assistance and taking more steps on his own since the stem cell treatment. He is using both hands to finish tasks. Nikki said Dalton “is blossoming in school.”

Dalton used to hate being in the classroom. These days, his mother has a hard time getting him out of the classroom.

“2010 was a miraculous year for Dalton and me — things paid off for us,” Nikki said. “I am excited to see what the new year brings for us.

“The doctors said any changes would take six to eight months and in only three months, it has been astounding,” she added.

Please read the rest of the article on Dalton's treatment here

Bush to Obama- Still No Progress on Stem Cell Treatments

While children with cerebral palsy are being helped by adult stem cells in China, Germany, Panama, and many other countries, the USA offers nothing for these children that can be helped now. Is the technology and know how available in the USA??-- definitely.

What happened to Obama? Didn't we all think that with Bush out of the White House that Obama would "release" the funds and research and stem cells would be available to all? How much closer are we today than when Bush was in office?? I see no progress. Researchers are still crowing about improvements in mice, but translating that into stem cell therapies are still many light years away.

Looks like Obama has made as much progress with stem cell research as he has made with the economy.