Body joints undergo significant load every day, and when they are damaged, the person experience a lot of pain while walking, can't climb the stairs freely, can't bend the limbs properly. The man-made parts are used to replace the damaged joints, and this is called joint replacement therapy or surgery. Knee, elbow, ankle, hip, shoulder and finger joints can be replaced to reduce pain and make the movements easier. With the medical field evolving every day, the risks associated with this surgery have become very low these days, and the operation is followed by the exercise schedule to reduce the stiffness. However, those who do not want to go for a joint replacement can try the stem cell therapy as the alternative to the surgery.
Osteoarthritis is a degenerative condition, which is affecting more than 50 million adults in the US alone. The sad fact is that the disease also affects 300,000 children in the US currently. The acute and severe pain experienced by the patients can restrict their movements, and also affect the quality of life. It can be seen that the number of the diseased people rapidly increases, which is an indication that joint replacement surgery that uses plastic and metal joints cannot alone solve the issue. This is where stem cell therapy comes into the picture.
What is stem cell therapy?
Some people think that stem cell therapy makes use solely of the embryos the bone marrow transplants that are involved. But stem cell therapy is a highly evolving regenerative therapy that stepped away from using embryonic stem cells. This therapy makes use of the umbilical cord blood. The material is stored under the right conditions in the laboratory. The umbilical cord blood that is donated by different mothers are used. Each mother is tested for diseases and infections. Only after screening the cord blood can be used. This therapy has been developed after some research that involved checking which type of stem cell therapy can be considered the most efficient and safe.
Benefits of this therapy
The animals with various types of arthritis have been healed after the stem cell treatment. The stem cells have the unique ability to stimulate the natural body's repair by stimulating the immune system to create living, functional tissues to repair or replace tissue or organs that have been damaged. However, the ability to fight diseases is not compromised. This therapy is highly efficient for arthritic patients, because there is no cell rejection involved. The umbilical cord blood tissues are derived from mesenchymal stem cells. The stem cells are not collected from the backbone, which is quite an unpleasant ordeal for the patients. The stem cells can release granulocytes into the bloodstream themselves.
Stem cell therapy helps patients by repairing the damage, and it is not merely a way to tackle pain. It involves using the cells of umbilical cord blood for stimulating the repair mechanism. And as a result, the new cells of the joint and cartilage are regenerated with increased functionality and no pain.
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Hello, Yuliya Adams.
Thank you for this informative Share!
Helena
May 11, 2018 - 1:40pmThis Comment