Polio-like disease cases may have reached their peak, says UT Southwestern doctor | Science and medicine



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The extent of recovery depends on how the AFM affects children's bodies, Greenberg said. People suffering from inflammation caused by an immune response tend to do better because steroids can calm inflammation. People with spinal cord injuries caused directly by the virus warrant different treatments and do not respond either.

For both groups of patients, he found that an aggressive physical therapy beginning shortly after hospitalization, including electrical stimulation of the muscles to force them to contract, allowed for optimal recovery. "We try to keep muscles and joints as healthy as possible so that when the nervous system repairs, it will have enough muscle to connect," Greenberg said.

One frustration has been to ensure that insurance companies cover the required extended physical therapy.

"We see enough kids to improve so they can look parents in the eye and say," It's a horrible event, and we sympathize with you, but the good news is that With work, we can show you children who walk and back to school, "said Greenberg. "There is a return road, but we have not found an easy route yet."

To improve research on the AFM, Greenberg called for mandatory disease reporting and centralized testing of infectious agents so that researchers can better understand the extent of the outbreak.

"Without that, there will always be an element of uncertainty around the data," he said.

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