"What we are doing now is just the tip of the iceberg," Dr. Ali Rezai, director of the Brain Neuromodulation Centers at the Cleveland Clinic, said in an interview. "This concept is evolving."

For people living with paralysis, the technology has the potential to be life-changing.

Stephen Heywood was one of some 30,000 people in the United States suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, and a participant in the BrainGate trial.

"After being paralyzed for so long, it is almost impossible to describe the magical feeling of imagining a motion and having it occur," Heywood said in an e-mail to his brother James after a session controlling a robotic arm.

Heywood, whose fight with the disease was documented in the movie "So Much So Fast," died on November 26 after his respirator became accidentally detached.

Surgenor said BrainGate should be commercially available before the end of the decade.

"A lot of the technology that supports BrainGate is already out there," he said. Cyberkinetics provides the operating system. The goal is to make the components small enough and wireless, thus eliminating the need for a plug on the scalp.

Northstar Neuroscience, another company attending the meeting at Cleveland Clinic, is testing a device that aims to help stroke victims recover from disabilities such as impairment of hand and arm movement.

The therapy identifies specific areas of the brain that are trying to compensate for lost function and implants electrodes there. Electronic stimulation theoretically strengthens connections between neurons.

"It works by taking advantage of a naturally-occurring phenomenon called neuroplasticity -- the brain's ability to reorganize in response to an injury," Northstar Chief Executive Alan Levy said.

When part of the brain dies because of a stroke, another part of the brain attempts to take over that function. The trouble is, in most cases the process doesn't go far enough and relatively little function is recovered, he said.

"What Northstar has discovered is that if you stimulate the neurons in the new neuroplastic area, you can dramatically enhance the neuroplasticity and enhance function," he said.

For several years, doctors have been implanting brain pacemakers into patients with Parkinson's disease or other disorders that cause severe tremors.

The stop-watch size device, made by Medtronic Inc., is implanted in the chest and connected to leads threaded into the brain. Known as deep brain stimulation, it delivers electrical pulses to targeted areas in the brain to interrupt the signals that cause tremor.

Medtronic is testing to see if it might also help cases of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), depression and obesity.

Cleveland Clinic's Rezai said using electricity to stimulate various parts of the nervous system or organs may soon help people who suffer such varied afflictions as OCD, migraine headaches, sleep apnea, incontinence, obesity, impotence, hypertension and even heart failure.

"There will be a lot of diseases that we can't help today that we will be able to help."

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

Midwives can perform abortions safely: study

Last Updated: 2006-11-29 11:36:07 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Patricia Reaney

LONDON - Specially trained midwives and doctors' assistants can perform early abortions in developing countries as safely as doctors, researchers said on Wednesday.

Each year an estimated 19 million women have unsafe abortions and nearly 70,000, or about eight every hour, die because of complications.

Improving access to safe procedures in poor areas could reduce the number of deaths, complications and children orphaned by backstreet abortions and free up doctors to perform more complicated operations.

"With appropriate government training, mid-level health-care providers can provide first-trimester vacuum aspiration abortions as safely as doctors can," said Ina Warriner, of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, in a report published online by The Lancet medical journal.

Vacuum aspiration is the main type of abortion performed during the first three months of pregnancy.

Warriner and a team of researchers in South Africa and Vietnam compared the rate of complications in both countries in women who had early abortions performed by doctors or trained midwives and assistants.

In Vietnam, the rate of complications was 1.2 per 100 women who had abortions done by trained professionals and 1.4 per 100 women in South Africa. There were no complications in either countries in women who had abortions done by doctors.

"Rates of complications in both South Africa and Vietnam were low," Warriner said in the study.

The researchers attributed the difference in the complication rates between the two groups to the doctors' increased years of experience.

In a commentary, Yap-Seng Chong and Citra Nurfarah Mattar of the National University of Singapore said the study was the first randomized trial to compare the safety of early abortions performed by doctors and non physicians.

"If all unsafe abortions were by trained and accredited providers, physicians or otherwise, there would be at least an 80 percent reduction in complications, assuming a complication rate of up to 4.5 percent and far fewer deaths," they said.

Dr. Marcelo Veterans, of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in London welcomed the findings but added that good quality basic training and ongoing supportive supervision would be needed.

"The rate of complications is extremely low," he said, adding that it would increase the quality of care in poor, rural areas.

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.