Touching Lives - June 2007

Anna O’Driscoll had a completely normal first pregnancy up until the 26th week, when her waters broke without warning and she had to be admitted to hospital. Barney was born weighing just 2lb 6oz at 27 weeks gestation. His three month stay in the neonatal unit was a highly traumatic time for the new parents.

Bring Your Bear is a key event in our calendar, helping us to raise money for our Touching Tiny Lives campaign, and has raised a magnificent £300,000 since 2003. Last year’s event made over £80,000, and we’re hoping to do even better this year!

We’ve had a tremendous response from schools, nurseries, children’s clubs and companies across the UK, who have pledged to raise funds to help our work while enjoying themselves at the same time.

These skills include running, jumping, throwing and drawing. By school age, children have acquired a range of movement skills, but occasionally these are not developed enough for the child to function effectively at school. This affects about 5% of school age children who are said to have developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and typically have difficulty with normal activities of daily living.

The effects of Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) vary depending on where in the body the growths have developed, but they can cause a range of complications including headaches, blurred vision or blindness, unsteadiness, pain and even cancer.VHL is estimated to affect more than 200,000 people globally, around 2,000 of whom are in the UK.

Anne and Stuart Simpson established a fund to honour the life of their son Paul. Anne contacted us recently to let us know that their local drama group has very kindly offered to donate a proportion of the profits from their next production.

However, there is an additional saving on a gift of shares in the form of capital gains tax relief. Similar relief also applies if you wish to donate land or buildings. No capital gains tax is payable on any increase in the value of the shares donated. In theory this could mean a further ‘saving’ of up to 40%. However, where shares have fallen in value the loss cannot be used to offset a capital gains tax liability.

TV star Davina McCall is coming to Southampton for a special ladies’ lunch on Friday 21st September 2007, where we hope over 300 supporters will join us for this prestigious and glamorous event at The De Vere Grand Harbour Hotel.

Davina is an enthusiastic supporter of Action Medical Research and over the last two years has led Davina’s Day Out — a sponsored walk around Portsmouth Harbour.

The Communications Team has again been busy in early 2007, getting the national media interested in both our research and campaigns work.

One of our exciting medical research projects has seen Action Medical Research appearing in the broadsheet and scientific press — namely the new Monica AN24 fetal heart rate monitor, which aims to give obstetricians a better picture of the workings of the unborn baby’s heart.

The pulse on the wrist provides information about how fast and how regularly the heart is beating — the ‘strength’ of the pulse, to the experienced tester, is some indication of blood pressure and how vigorously the heart is working.The stethoscope picks up sounds related to the flow of blood and how well the valves are functioning. Next to these, the electrocardiogram, a signal not apparent to any of the human senses, is probably the most frequent diagnostic measurement applied to hospital patients.

A good example is the support recently given to a team of scientists looking at the unique properties of a small protein molecule, which could be a key to finding treatments for a range of disabling neurodegenerative diseases.

Work undertaken by a team from Imperial College at Charing Cross Hospital and Birkbeck College in London has shown that a molecule known as heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) can be used to protect motor neurones and help improve damaged muscle function in a laboratory setting.

What is DVT?

Now that the holiday season is upon us and airports are full of people jetting off to exotic locations, it’s an opportune time to address deep vein thrombosis (DVT) — a blood clot that can be caused by long periods of immobility such as long-haul flights. In extreme cases, it may lead to a pulmonary embolism (clot on the lung).This is the result of small pieces of the clot detaching and travelling through the bloodstream to the lungs, and can result in shortness of breath, chest pains and even sudden death.

The wrong way

Action Medical Research has funded a study into the problem of food going down the ‘wrong way’.This inhalation of food without overt coughing is a process called ‘silent aspiration’ and researchers have developed a new test that should help doctors assess a patient’s ability to swallow and the likelihood of them silently inhaling food.

Babies’ lives are being made safer thanks to the wonderful supporters of the Action Medical Research Touching Tiny Lives campaign. And we are not giving up now!

Pregnancy

The first of our Touching Tiny Lives goals is to reduce the number of women affected by pregnancy complications. Over the next few years hundreds of thousands of mothers in the UK will become pregnant and give birth. As these new lives begin, we look forward to the medical advances that will help mothers-to-be enjoy a safe, healthy pregnancy and labour.

Combating threatening conditions

Costa Rica is considered by many who know it to be the country that most closely resembles paradise on earth, and trekkers will experience a huge variety of landscapes and wildlife over their 12-day journey.The route will wind through coffee plantations and oak forests deep into cloud forest and dense tropical jungle.The adventure ends on a beautiful tropical beach, where everyone will be able to relax and rest those weary feet.

If a child has cerebral palsy it means that they are unable to control some of the muscles in their body in the normal way. They may not be able to walk, talk, eat or play in the same way as other children.This is due to restricted movement in the joints (contractures), the child being unable to bend or straighten them fully.

Choosing Action Medical Research

I had already run the London Marathon on a number of occasions for Action Medical Research, and Barry Bates (our Managing Director) had also supported the charity through one of his previous companies in the 1980s. So when we first discussed a charity beneficiary for our annual golf day, Action Medical Research was a natural choice!