User talk:Felnora

Italic textHighly contagious, the poliovirus spread by contact with contaminated feces or oral secretions. Children were most vulnerable. The virus inflamed nerves in the brain and spinal cord, causing paralysis of the muscles in the chest, leg or arms in severe cases. In 1950, 33,300 people were stricken. Lacking a vaccine, the nation tried to halt the spread of polio by closing public pools and parks. Parents ordered their children not to drink from public water fountains. Schools canceled graduations as a precaution. The March of Dimes raised money for a cure. Few people who saw them can forget the organization's poster children -- adorable tots with braces and crutches who posed in fund-raising pictures. For all its pain and grief, polio's era of fear provided knowledge that is useful today and would have been invaluable back in the '50s. For example: •	Respiratory devices evolved into highly effective portable units. Polio sufferers with chest paralysis spent time in a Drinker respirator, the so- called "iron lung." Almost the length of a subcompact car, the iron lung exerted a push-pull motion on the chest. Nicolas E. Walsh, MD, chairman of the department of rehabilitation medicine, said the machines would be unnecessary today. "Now," he said, "we would simply use a tracheotomy tube connected to a ventilator that's about the size of an overnight suitcase." •	Crippling effects of confinement might have been eliminated. "Iron -lung patients could have been up and walking instead of being totally immobilized," said Pamela E. Stanton, EdD, who heads the department of physical therapy. "We would have had them go through range-of-motion exercises twice a day to prevent contractures." Contracted muscles became foreshortened and immobile with inactivity. The condition was common among acute polio patients. •	Therapists now have better strategies for bracing weak limbs. "During the polio epidemic, we laid the foundation of our understanding about orthotics, which is the bracing and stabilizing of arms and legs, and the physiology and neurophysiology of muscles," Dr. Stanton said. •	A pain-blocking technology called trans-cutaneous electro-neural stimulation, or TENS, might have been used. Polio patients experienced muscular pain, particularly during the early stages of de-innervation. De- innervation describes the nerve-killing aspect of the disease. TENS is thought to block pain signals coming from the muscles and conveyed to the brain. The patient carries a portable device about the size of a pack of cigarettes that emits low levels of electrical current. TENS is frequently used today for back pain and post-surgical pain. "Most polio patients had enormous muscle pain," said William R. Gould, PhD, assistant professor of physical therapy and of cellular and structural biology. "The treatment of choice in those days was to apply moist heat packs to help alleviate the pain." An estimated 250,000 Americans who survived the polio epidemic of the '40s and '50s now have a residual weakness called post-polio syndrome. Sufferers complain of joint pain, decreased endurance and muscle atrophy. Dr. Walsh said the syndrome is associated with nerve loss from the initial polio. "Post-polio syndrome is the manifestation of the normal aging process in the polio victim," he said. "The polio victim has fewer nerves than they had before the virus, so with age they become weaker at a faster rate than others." Dr. Stanton, who has treated two women with the syndrome, prescribes exercise that minimizes joint stress and muscle fatigue. Mild aerobics and weight training have been shown to help, Dr. Walsh said. In most cases, Dr. Stanton said, pain associated with post-polio syndrome appears to result from victims overusing certain joints and muscles to compensate for the lost use of other joints or muscles. Citing one patient's case, Dr. Stanton said, "Her shoulders, or anyone's shoulders for that matter, were never made to haul her body weight back and forth to a wheelchair."