EP 51: The Future of Repairing Paralysis with Dr. Erik Bendiks (Part 4)

Welcome to the catastrophic comeback podcast with American Injury Lawyer Clark speaks, helping you find hope, purpose and joy after a catastrophic injury.

Are there is there anything that jumps out at you about future technology that you hear about or that you that you think is in development process that may be available to our kids or grandkids? Oh, for sure. There's so many amazing things that are coming out and either through gene genetic manipulation.

different chemicals that are either growth factors, or you know, the big buzzword is stem cells. Now, we hear that all the time. Tell me can you tell me what that means and how it applies here. So stem cells, the basic concept behind stem stem cells is that when we're

in the womb, we start off as one cell, and then we go into two into three. And before you know it, you have enough cells that some of them start to become the heart, some of them start to become a kidney, somebody become a left I will before they get to that point of starting to branch off and be a specialized type of cell, they are pillory potential, they are a cell that can basically do anything it could, it could become a brain, it could become a kidney, it could become a fingernail, whatever it might be. And those cells have have a lot of potential flurry potential. And those cells also have a lot of growth factors in them. And so the thought is, okay, if we can get those cells and get those packets of chemicals out of them, those growth factors might be helpful for regenerating tissue, or for helping heal a wound. For instance, we damaged the discs in our in our spine, and we don't there's no blood, no oxygen, no oxygen, no healing, that disc is damaged forever. What if we could just inject some stem cells or some of those growth factors those growth chemicals into the disk and it helps the the new cartilage starting to form in the disk and it could heal it? Yeah, that sounds awesome. You know, we're not there yet. There are clinics all over the place that claim to inject stem cells or do inject stem cells or growth factors. But right now, it's still the Wild West, in my opinion, there's not a lot of regulation, there's not a lot of oversight. We don't know exactly what's being injected, nor how good it is, whatever that product is, do we need 5 million stem cells? Do we need 10 million? Are these stem cells stem cells that were collected from an 85 year old man, which probably not going to have too many good stem cells? Was it taken from a 15 year old kid? Was it taken from a smoker or a nonsmoker? There's so many variabilities was it taken? What tissue? Was it taken from? Was it taken from the placenta from the quarry on? It's all over the map. And I don't know, I don't have enough knowledge about that. I dabbled a little bit in the stem cell stuff and tried it on a few patients. And it seemed to work for for a bit, I had a couple of patients that had some knee issues we injected in the knees. And I don't know if they just wanted to please me and said, Yeah, I feel better or if they truly were. But they did say that at about the like the six or seven month mark, the pain started to come back. But the reality is, Okay, what if you give me six months of relief on my bum knee? And I have to come back every six months? Okay, two injections a year? I'll do it. If I don't have to do a knee replacement or whatever. I think that will be worthwhile. You know, it's obviously just a question a cost. And there's not, that's kind of all over the board too. So, but I think that's amazing technology. So stem cells, some of the genetic research that's out there, within my area of interest, just the different implants that are going in new implants, different types of disc replacements. So there's different companies out there, you can kind of think of it as Ford and Chevrolet, they all do cars, but they do them slightly differently. And so there's different companies that do disc replacements for the neck or for the back. And some of them might be a little bit better for this a little bit better for that. But it is really cool technology. So one of the things one of the things that we deal with sometimes, especially in our catastrophic cases of spinal injuries that might result in paralysis.

You know, we have paraplegics. And we have quadriplegics and people that have dealt with some really, really life changing experiences. And, you know, a lot of times they're, you know, some just different ages, young people, old people.

And it's just like those people have, there is a massive impact on a person's life under those circumstances. Now, you and I have talked about this bond separate Center in Atlanta and at least

in my observation is just a phenomenal place. And a lot of those people end up in this bond center to receive therapy and it's funny I was I was there probably six months ago and I was talking to

Well, I'm

one of the people that runs that place about being on the podcast actually. And I was in I was there about my client and their patient as well. And this was a person who is a paraplegic. And they were, and I was asking him a question or whatever. And it was, what occurred to me about this individual was they were,

they didn't, they didn't seem overly sympathetic, you know, and I was kind of, a little bit taken aback by that. And they were like, look, I mean, that's not, that's not what we're about, you know, that you get your sympathy somewhere else, we're here about making you understand that you can have a full

meaningful life just not much different than you would have had. No, I mean, they're their job is to get you in at parties for somebody else, and we're gonna get you back in the game, we're gonna get you back on the field.

And, and I was blown away by the fact that they were like, especially paralysis in the waist down, there is almost nothing, there are very few things that you could do before that you will not be able to do if you commit yourself to. And that was their approach. And I was I was like, very, very impressed with the person with whom I was once seemed incredible about the Shepherd Center, Spine Center in Atlanta, and lots of these types of clinics, like you talked about, like Mayo Clinic, up in Rochester, Minnesota, is there's a big emphasis on collaboration. It's not the spine surgeon, it's not the therapist, it's not the psychotherapist over there. They put everything under the same roof. And that's what's amazing about that is, you know, you go to, I've only heard about it, but you go to Mayo Clinic, and you come in there with some weird symptoms. I've got night sweats and fevers and I get blurry vision. Okay, let's start off here, you'll first see the internal medicine guy he's going to do, she's gonna do her workup. They're gonna send you for labs, but then she's thinking, You know what, I think you need to see the neurologist, pop into the door next door, and the neurologist is ready to see you right then. And they're not six weeks later, or whatever. And that neurologist already has the labs that were done just an hour before. And they're thinking, You know what, I actually think this might be neurosurgery. Let me send you over right now to the neurosurgeon, and the neurosurgeon has everything. Let's get the MRI right now. And by that afternoon, you're walking out with your diagnosis and a treatment plan. And that's like the Shepherd Center is, I don't know exactly. But that's what I've heard multiple times about Mayo Clinic. And what's amazing about that is the collaboration, you have all those people right there, they're all working together, they're all able to share their data, their information immediately. And you come up with a diagnosis and a treatment plan with a much broader fuller view of of the patient and what's going on and a much higher chance that you're really getting the right diagnosis and the right treatment. Shepherd Center is the same thing. You've got spine surgeons, you got neurosurgeons you got physical therapist, you got massage therapists, you have internal medicine doctors, you have psychotherapist, they're really focusing in a collaborative manner to be able to get that patient Whole Again, not for just a physical perspective, but a psychological, social perspective. And I think that's what's great about places like that you talk about like MD Anderson Cancer Center down in Houston, they have that they have the the oncologist, the hematologist, the plastic surgeon to repair after you've cut off that body part and make it look good. They have all of that stuff all in house. And I think that's what's great about those types of facilities. It's not, you know, feasible to do that in every city in every town, but that's what makes those types of places stand out. Yeah. And they're just amazing. Can you can you envision a place in the future where permanent paralysis is a thing of the past? We can put a man on the moon Why Why can't we do that? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's just a question of, of committing the manpower and the resources and the research money to do so. You know, the thing that your podcast viewers are gonna, gonna wonder is okay, well, what's the deal? Why, why? Why can't you fix that thing. So the nervous system is you have the central nervous system. And the peripheral is just two separate systems and it's all electrical wiring. So the brain and the spinal cord are the central nervous system, where the nerves come out of the brain and then head to the ears or into the to the to the tongue or shoot off from my neck and go off into my arm or shoot off from my back and go into the lead called the sciatic nerve.

Those are nerves that are peripheral, they can actually be repaired to an extent. So say, within my finger here, you'll have a nerve that runs along this side and another one that runs here, and not infrequently, where we're manual animals, we touch our environment, we can enjoy our finger, we can cut our finger, you've cut that nerve, and that's it. You won't feel on this side of the finger. You'll still feel over here, unless you happen to cut all the

way across from one side to the other. But the nice thing about that nerve is you can repair it, you can sew it back together, or now they have actual glue where you just stick the pieces together. And depending on how healthy you are, that nerve can actually grow back, and you'll get regain sensation in your finger there. The problem with cutting a nerve in the spinal cord, or in the brain is once that is cut the that doesn't have the ability to regenerate. And we haven't figured out yet what what is the the is the electrical reason? Is it a physical reason, like the wall around the nerve is different? Is it a chemical reason there's certain chemicals that are out here that will help the finger nerve grow back are not available within the spinal cord? That's an area that's still we're still pursuing that we don't know yet. But that doesn't mean that we won't find it and figure it out, it's just a question of time, we've been able to figure out a lot of other health care puzzles. And I believe now especially with genetic research, as well as better

labs, technology to be able to tease out different chemicals that we weren't able to tease out before we're able to, we'll be able to find that we'll be able to find that

solution to that, you know, I hear or I've seen things where they don't necessarily fix the nerve. But now they'll give you an exoskeleton, they'll they'll put the patient inside of like a suit of armor that has that you had Iron Man suit that actually moves and can move for the patient. It's absolutely fascinating. So there's lots of either, okay, let's ask, let's actually fix the nerve, or okay, we can't fix the nerve, let's build a new arm or new leg for that person, a robotic arm or leg so that they can continue to manipulate their environment, they can continue to walk, they can continue to interact with the world, I would imagine that the the progress of medical technology development is probably enhanced increased also by artificial intelligence. And you can just you get down the curve. And you get to learn more things more quickly. But through that technology is that I know very little about artificial technology. But the basic concept of being able to have a computer think as fast as a human brain or now faster, and then be able to go through all different sorts of algorithms. Absolutely. Like, you know, when you're doing research now, before we would, we wanted to find a therapy for a particular disease, we go ahead and get a bunch of plants from the rainforest, and then take out, isolate the chemicals out of them, the alkaloids or whatever they are, and see if any of them can be useful for a particular treatment. Now we can actually map what that protein is, that might be missing in our

in our body that we need for a particular process, and then figure out how to build that protein or figure out how to actually see the genes, that code for this protein, and then realize, okay, we're missing that one base right there. And that's what causes disease, let's go ahead and go in there with this gene-altering protein that can go in there and basically just edit

that one base, remove it and stick the new bass in there. It's absolutely amazing technology now, and it's really, you know, they're they're using that technology to be able to address certain

specific genetic diseases. And they're making fantastic headway. And it's only a matter of time, you know, before we get other diseases that are more genetically complex, and then we can address those as well. And by having super computers or super brains like AI, it makes sense that you can solve those problems that much faster, and go through, you know, different

shapes of a protein. Now, you don't just think on your own. Okay, but I might want to change the shape. Now you're using the supercomputer to think of all different potential shapes that might be the best shape that works to to solve this, this problem. Absolutely amazing. Absolutely. Amazing. That's fascinating. We got a minute. Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate you being here. And I think what you've said is gonna be helpful to a lot of people. So thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

Welcome to the catastrophic comeback podcast with American Injury Lawyer Clark speaks, helping you find hope, purpose and joy after a catastrophic injury.

Are there is there anything that jumps out at you about future technology that you hear about or that you that you think is in development process that may be available to our kids or grandkids? Oh, for sure. There's so many amazing things that are coming out and either through gene genetic manipulation.

different chemicals that are either growth factors, or you know, the big buzzword is stem cells. Now, we hear that all the time. Tell me can you tell me what that means and how it applies here. So stem cells, the basic concept behind stem stem cells is that when we're

in the womb, we start off as one cell, and then we go into two into three. And before you know it, you have enough cells that some of them start to become the heart, some of them start to become a kidney, somebody become a left I will before they get to that point of starting to branch off and be a specialized type of cell, they are pillory potential, they are a cell that can basically do anything it could, it could become a brain, it could become a kidney, it could become a fingernail, whatever it might be. And those cells have have a lot of potential flurry potential. And those cells also have a lot of growth factors in them. And so the thought is, okay, if we can get those cells and get those packets of chemicals out of them, those growth factors might be helpful for regenerating tissue, or for helping heal a wound. For instance, we damaged the discs in our in our spine, and we don't there's no blood, no oxygen, no oxygen, no healing, that disc is damaged forever. What if we could just inject some stem cells or some of those growth factors those growth chemicals into the disk and it helps the the new cartilage starting to form in the disk and it could heal it? Yeah, that sounds awesome. You know, we're not there yet. There are clinics all over the place that claim to inject stem cells or do inject stem cells or growth factors. But right now, it's still the Wild West, in my opinion, there's not a lot of regulation, there's not a lot of oversight. We don't know exactly what's being injected, nor how good it is, whatever that product is, do we need 5 million stem cells? Do we need 10 million? Are these stem cells stem cells that were collected from an 85 year old man, which probably not going to have too many good stem cells? Was it taken from a 15 year old kid? Was it taken from a smoker or a nonsmoker? There's so many variabilities was it taken? What tissue? Was it taken from? Was it taken from the placenta from the quarry on? It's all over the map. And I don't know, I don't have enough knowledge about that. I dabbled a little bit in the stem cell stuff and tried it on a few patients. And it seemed to work for for a bit, I had a couple of patients that had some knee issues we injected in the knees. And I don't know if they just wanted to please me and said, Yeah, I feel better or if they truly were. But they did say that at about the like the six or seven month mark, the pain started to come back. But the reality is, Okay, what if you give me six months of relief on my bum knee? And I have to come back every six months? Okay, two injections a year? I'll do it. If I don't have to do a knee replacement or whatever. I think that will be worthwhile. You know, it's obviously just a question a cost. And there's not, that's kind of all over the board too. So, but I think that's amazing technology. So stem cells, some of the genetic research that's out there, within my area of interest, just the different implants that are going in new implants, different types of disc replacements. So there's different companies out there, you can kind of think of it as Ford and Chevrolet, they all do cars, but they do them slightly differently. And so there's different companies that do disc replacements for the neck or for the back. And some of them might be a little bit better for this a little bit better for that. But it is really cool technology. So one of the things one of the things that we deal with sometimes, especially in our catastrophic cases of spinal injuries that might result in paralysis.

You know, we have paraplegics. And we have quadriplegics and people that have dealt with some really, really life changing experiences. And, you know, a lot of times they're, you know, some just different ages, young people, old people.

And it's just like those people have, there is a massive impact on a person's life under those circumstances. Now, you and I have talked about this bond separate Center in Atlanta and at least

in my observation is just a phenomenal place. And a lot of those people end up in this bond center to receive therapy and it's funny I was I was there probably six months ago and I was talking to

Well, I'm

one of the people that runs that place about being on the podcast actually. And I was in I was there about my client and their patient as well. And this was a person who is a paraplegic. And they were, and I was asking him a question or whatever. And it was, what occurred to me about this individual was they were,

they didn't, they didn't seem overly sympathetic, you know, and I was kind of, a little bit taken aback by that. And they were like, look, I mean, that's not, that's not what we're about, you know, that you get your sympathy somewhere else, we're here about making you understand that you can have a full

meaningful life just not much different than you would have had. No, I mean, they're their job is to get you in at parties for somebody else, and we're gonna get you back in the game, we're gonna get you back on the field.

And, and I was blown away by the fact that they were like, especially paralysis in the waist down, there is almost nothing, there are very few things that you could do before that you will not be able to do if you commit yourself to. And that was their approach. And I was I was like, very, very impressed with the person with whom I was once seemed incredible about the Shepherd Center, Spine Center in Atlanta, and lots of these types of clinics, like you talked about, like Mayo Clinic, up in Rochester, Minnesota, is there's a big emphasis on collaboration. It's not the spine surgeon, it's not the therapist, it's not the psychotherapist over there. They put everything under the same roof. And that's what's amazing about that is, you know, you go to, I've only heard about it, but you go to Mayo Clinic, and you come in there with some weird symptoms. I've got night sweats and fevers and I get blurry vision. Okay, let's start off here, you'll first see the internal medicine guy he's going to do, she's gonna do her workup. They're gonna send you for labs, but then she's thinking, You know what, I think you need to see the neurologist, pop into the door next door, and the neurologist is ready to see you right then. And they're not six weeks later, or whatever. And that neurologist already has the labs that were done just an hour before. And they're thinking, You know what, I actually think this might be neurosurgery. Let me send you over right now to the neurosurgeon, and the neurosurgeon has everything. Let's get the MRI right now. And by that afternoon, you're walking out with your diagnosis and a treatment plan. And that's like the Shepherd Center is, I don't know exactly. But that's what I've heard multiple times about Mayo Clinic. And what's amazing about that is the collaboration, you have all those people right there, they're all working together, they're all able to share their data, their information immediately. And you come up with a diagnosis and a treatment plan with a much broader fuller view of of the patient and what's going on and a much higher chance that you're really getting the right diagnosis and the right treatment. Shepherd Center is the same thing. You've got spine surgeons, you got neurosurgeons you got physical therapist, you got massage therapists, you have internal medicine doctors, you have psychotherapist, they're really focusing in a collaborative manner to be able to get that patient Whole Again, not for just a physical perspective, but a psychological, social perspective. And I think that's what's great about places like that you talk about like MD Anderson Cancer Center down in Houston, they have that they have the the oncologist, the hematologist, the plastic surgeon to repair after you've cut off that body part and make it look good. They have all of that stuff all in house. And I think that's what's great about those types of facilities. It's not, you know, feasible to do that in every city in every town, but that's what makes those types of places stand out. Yeah. And they're just amazing. Can you can you envision a place in the future where permanent paralysis is a thing of the past? We can put a man on the moon Why Why can't we do that? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's just a question of, of committing the manpower and the resources and the research money to do so. You know, the thing that your podcast viewers are gonna, gonna wonder is okay, well, what's the deal? Why, why? Why can't you fix that thing. So the nervous system is you have the central nervous system. And the peripheral is just two separate systems and it's all electrical wiring. So the brain and the spinal cord are the central nervous system, where the nerves come out of the brain and then head to the ears or into the to the to the tongue or shoot off from my neck and go off into my arm or shoot off from my back and go into the lead called the sciatic nerve.

Those are nerves that are peripheral, they can actually be repaired to an extent. So say, within my finger here, you'll have a nerve that runs along this side and another one that runs here, and not infrequently, where we're manual animals, we touch our environment, we can enjoy our finger, we can cut our finger, you've cut that nerve, and that's it. You won't feel on this side of the finger. You'll still feel over here, unless you happen to cut all the

way across from one side to the other. But the nice thing about that nerve is you can repair it, you can sew it back together, or now they have actual glue where you just stick the pieces together. And depending on how healthy you are, that nerve can actually grow back, and you'll get regain sensation in your finger there. The problem with cutting a nerve in the spinal cord, or in the brain is once that is cut the that doesn't have the ability to regenerate. And we haven't figured out yet what what is the the is the electrical reason? Is it a physical reason, like the wall around the nerve is different? Is it a chemical reason there's certain chemicals that are out here that will help the finger nerve grow back are not available within the spinal cord? That's an area that's still we're still pursuing that we don't know yet. But that doesn't mean that we won't find it and figure it out, it's just a question of time, we've been able to figure out a lot of other health care puzzles. And I believe now especially with genetic research, as well as better

labs, technology to be able to tease out different chemicals that we weren't able to tease out before we're able to, we'll be able to find that we'll be able to find that

solution to that, you know, I hear or I've seen things where they don't necessarily fix the nerve. But now they'll give you an exoskeleton, they'll they'll put the patient inside of like a suit of armor that has that you had Iron Man suit that actually moves and can move for the patient. It's absolutely fascinating. So there's lots of either, okay, let's ask, let's actually fix the nerve, or okay, we can't fix the nerve, let's build a new arm or new leg for that person, a robotic arm or leg so that they can continue to manipulate their environment, they can continue to walk, they can continue to interact with the world, I would imagine that the the progress of medical technology development is probably enhanced increased also by artificial intelligence. And you can just you get down the curve. And you get to learn more things more quickly. But through that technology is that I know very little about artificial technology. But the basic concept of being able to have a computer think as fast as a human brain or now faster, and then be able to go through all different sorts of algorithms. Absolutely. Like, you know, when you're doing research now, before we would, we wanted to find a therapy for a particular disease, we go ahead and get a bunch of plants from the rainforest, and then take out, isolate the chemicals out of them, the alkaloids or whatever they are, and see if any of them can be useful for a particular treatment. Now we can actually map what that protein is, that might be missing in our

in our body that we need for a particular process, and then figure out how to build that protein or figure out how to actually see the genes, that code for this protein, and then realize, okay, we're missing that one base right there. And that's what causes disease, let's go ahead and go in there with this gene-altering protein that can go in there and basically just edit

that one base, remove it and stick the new bass in there. It's absolutely amazing technology now, and it's really, you know, they're they're using that technology to be able to address certain

specific genetic diseases. And they're making fantastic headway. And it's only a matter of time, you know, before we get other diseases that are more genetically complex, and then we can address those as well. And by having super computers or super brains like AI, it makes sense that you can solve those problems that much faster, and go through, you know, different

shapes of a protein. Now, you don't just think on your own. Okay, but I might want to change the shape. Now you're using the supercomputer to think of all different potential shapes that might be the best shape that works to to solve this, this problem. Absolutely amazing. Absolutely. Amazing. That's fascinating. We got a minute. Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate you being here. And I think what you've said is gonna be helpful to a lot of people. So thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time.