Blog Posts Isotope

Autism, more correctly known as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is not a disease, like chickenpox or pneumonia, and thus, when people are diagnosed with it, there is no cure, such as antibiotics to make it go away. There are a few ways to manage the symptoms of ASD, such as traditional prescriptions of medications, though these fall more in line with anti-psychotics, rather than curatives. Other treatments are focused on behavioral therapy, teaching ASD children to manage and self-regulate their behavioral tendencies, such as learning to maintain eye contact when having conversations.

One recent development in treatments is the usage of stem cell therapy as a way to manage ASD. But what is stem cell therapy, and what do the stem cells themselves do that other forms of treatment aren’t managing? We’ll explain.

They Can Be Anything

Understanding stem cells and their incredible versatility means looking at the human reproductive process and going back to a fertilized egg in the womb. What starts as a single egg cell, fertilized by a sperm cell, develops, over the course of nine months, from one generic egg cell, into a fully-formed baby, complete with blood, lungs, a beating heart, and a brain that can think and feel. Stem cells are what make it possible for one, fertilized, undifferentiated cell, to grow into the specialized organs that make up a human.

The power of stem cells is that, unlike other cells, they are not “dedicated” to becoming just one thing. Once blood is formed, for example, if there’s any blood loss from a cut, replacement blood cells are grown from existing blood cells. Your brain can’t produce more blood cells; it can only produce more brain cells.

However, wherever stem cells go, they can program themselves to whatever is needed, even in the case of cells that aren’t reproducing correctly. This is why stem cell therapy became one of the most effective forms of treatment for certain types of cancer, such as leukemia, which is where stem cell therapy first went into widespread, medically approved practice.

The Supply Is Limited

Unfortunately, as useful as stem cells can be to the human body, beyond a certain point, they are just not that plentiful. When humans are developing in a mother’s womb, the need to develop all the specialized organs “from scratch” means that stem cells are in abundance during the pregnancy. This creates a substance that is colloquially known as “cord blood.”

Cord blood is really the various biological materials and fluids found in the placenta, which is the thin membrane that surrounds a baby during pregnancy. The cord in question refers to the umbilical cord, the direct connection the baby has to the mother, where all the nutrients required to fuel stem cell growth are transferred, while any waste material created during the pregnancy is also carried out, to prevent a toxic environment. Because of this intense flow of “biological traffic” within the umbilical cord, after birth occurs, it is the umbilical cord, with its “cord blood” that is still richly saturated in these valuable cells, which are no longer produced in such huge volume in either the mother or the child after birth has occurred.

The Post Birth Options

Just because birth has occurred and stem cells are not in “high production” anymore, that doesn’t mean that a supply of “fresh” stem cells is impossible, it’s just harder to gain access to. This is why, for example, a cut in the skin can easily heal, as the skin cells reproduce more skin, but in the case of a limb being lost to amputation, the skin, bones, muscles, and nerves cannot all regrow. There aren’t enough stem cells to do this.

After birth, people do still have some stem cells present in their body, but they are not as “versatile” as the stem cells that are produced during birth. These stem cells are stored in “out of the way places,” such as the bone marrow, meaning that retrieving them, while possible, is a much more complex and labor-intensive process than retrieving stem cells from cord blood. It’s possible, however, to modify bone marrow stem cells in the lab to become more “pluripotent,” though still not as flexible as cord cells. This smaller quantity of stem cells can be extracted from areas such as bone marrow, the brain, and the liver.

It’s important to note that it’s not just any stem cell that can be used in stem cell therapy. In the same way that a blood transfusion or organ transplant must be compatible with the patient; the same is true for stem cells. This is why cord blood from a child’s birth, or stem cells retrieved from a person’s bone marrow, guarantee 100% acceptance and compatibility with a patient while attempting to use random samples can result in rejection, and possibly even harm to the patient.

Those diagnosed with autism are more formally known to have autism spectrum disorder or ASD. This is a neurophysiological condition that can most often express itself in behavioral symptoms. As a result, living a normal life for some people with ASD can present some big challenges.

For the moment, ASD has no cure; the symptoms must be treated and managed to varying degrees. Much of this, however, depends on the exact evaluation of ASD in a child. As the name implies, Autism Spectrum Disorder occurs on a spectrum, so different children will exhibit different symptoms at different levels of severity. Some were formally considered “high functioning” or “mild” conditions with little or no serious treatment intervention required, while others will require extensive attention to overcome severe behavioral symptoms. There are several ways to treat autism.

Medical Prescriptions

In the past, before autism was formally recognized as a unique medical condition, many doctors erroneously diagnosed people with ASD as schizophrenic, and so many of the usual treatments of schizophrenia were applied to these patients. One of the complicating factors in why it took so long to for ASD to be recognized on its own was that some of the schizophrenia treatments, such as certain medications, yielded positive results.

That means that even today, with a much fuller and more comprehensive understanding of ASD, sometimes specialists will recommend a course of medication. Anti-psychotics, and other medicines, for example, have been prescribed to ASD children to curb more extreme behavioral issues such as violence and hostility.

Occupational Therapy

One of the primary forms of addressing ASD behavioral issues is through different types of therapy. Occupational therapy is often an effective solution for addressing very specific concerns. The name seems misleading in that it appears to suggest training people for work, such as learning a trade like plumbing, or carpentry.

In reality, what occupational therapy focuses on is learning to complete specific tasks. If a child is diagnosed with ASD and is evaluated as suitable for occupational therapy, this can result in training for many different things. Tying shoes properly, for example, is one of the things occupational therapy can help with. Learning self-applied techniques for managing emotions and controlling arousal or excitability, is another example of occupational therapy training children to take the actions they need to regulate themselves without constant adult intervention.

Speech Therapy

One of the primary symptoms that many ASD children exhibit is difficulty in sustaining normal communication. This can express itself in a variety of different ways, such as a refusal to maintain eye contact when interacting with others, or unnatural tones of voice, such as speaking in a flat, expressionless monotone, like a robot.

Speech therapy can be an effective, comprehensive way to teach ASD diagnosed children with the communication skills that most children subconsciously pick up and internalize. This is merely a more deliberate, conscious way to learn traits that come more easily to others. Children in speech therapy learn important skills, such as maintaining eye contact, implementing appropriate pauses in conversation before responding, or even learning alternative forms of communication such as sign language is these yield better results than traditional verbal communication.

Stem Cell Therapy

This is a very new form of treatment, and as a result, has yet to be widely implemented or receive official approval from larger administrative bodies, such as the Food & Drug Administration in the United States. However, that doesn’t mean that stem cell therapy doesn’t work; it just means that, as applied to stem cell therapy, it is very much in its infancy.

Stem cell therapy is a form of medical treatment that adds stem cells into a treatment area. Stem cells have the nickname “master cells,” because, unlike other cells such as blood, or skin, they can grow into any cell that is required. This is how babies develop from a loose collection of general cells into the more specialized organs like the brain and lungs. Unsurprisingly, this means that “cord blood,” which are the various fluids exchanged during pregnancy, located in the umbilical cord, is rich in stem cells even after birth has occurred.

Stem cell therapy has already proven its worth as a form of treatment for cancer, specifically leukemia, where the success of this method is well documented. After the success that stem cell therapy had in replacing cancerous blood cells and helping patients overcome this debilitating illness, medical science began looking into other areas where stem cells could be effective. Now, ASD stem cell therapy is one of those new areas. As a recent development, this means that the full implications of this treatment are not yet documented. However, it has already shown progress in eliminating some of the inflammation that is associated with ASD, as well as addressing some of the behavioral issues, such as reducing hostility and irritability.

There are many ways to address and treat ASD. It’s important to find the one that is right for your child’s unique diagnosis within ASD.

Autism, which today is more accurately referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, is a neurophysiological condition. While people diagnosed with ASD may exhibit some physical symptoms that require medical treatment, such as inflammation, the majority of ASD’s symptoms are behavioral.

This can mean people with ASD, especially children, at a critical juncture in their lives, can have major challenges integrating socially due to their behavioral symptoms. There is a range of different symptoms, such as an inability to maintain eye contact, unusual speech patterns, or even hostility. Some traditional medical treatments can help with managing ASD, but medical treatments do not help with the social component.

This is where is therapy can be important. Medical treatments such as administering anti-psychotics, or other medications, can suppress certain behaviors or symptoms, but children must still learn to socialize properly or perform other activities once behavior—such as hostility—has been reduced. Many different types of therapy help children to learn the behaviors that others may take for granted. Depending on the type of ASD symptoms a child has, different, effective forms of therapy include:

Occupational Therapy

The name may be misleading to some since this type of therapy isn’t about training people for employment opportunities. However, this type of therapy is about training people to perform activities that they can rely on to do themselves daily.

Occupational therapy focuses on assessing a child’s needs, especially when it comes to useful daily activities. Then it constructs therapeutic “training courses,” tailored to an ASD child’s sensibilities and needs to effectively learn those activities that give more agency to the child. The range of activities can include anything from learning to tie shoes correctly to training in sleeping quietly, running, skipping, other hand-eye coordination activities, and even self-regulation methods, such as controlling emotional arousal and remaining calm.

This is a very specific form of therapy that requires extensive evaluation of the child, and his or her ASD tendencies, understanding what the symptoms are, and where along the spectrum they lie. It is only after evaluating a child’s symptoms that a proper course of action can be determined for which therapies can be learned, and which may require further treatment or assistance.

Speech Therapy

Communication for most children is something that is unconsciously “absorbed” and internalized. Under normal conditions, children learn to interpret cues like the rising tone at the end of a sentence to indicate a question or the frown of an adult as disapproval. However, for those with ASD, these communication skills aren’t so easily learned.

One aspect of speech therapy is to more consciously reinforce and train these cues that other children learn without formal training, and impart them to those evaluated as being suitable to learn. This can mean that an ASD child trains to overcome a natural aversion to eye contact, and learns to look at people when speaking. In some cases, it can mean learning alternative forms of communications such as sign language.

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)

Applied Behavior Analysis is a very specific, structured form of training that works on a rewards-based system to create long-lasting, desired, behavioral changes. This may be administered by parents, professionals, or both, depending on the circumstances.

ABA has different techniques aimed at achieving different results. Verbal behavior intervention is a technique that is often used to help impart and retain important communication skills. Pivotal response treatment is a different method that is used to train specific social behavior for interacting with others. Early intensive behavioral intervention is a specific form of training best applied to children under the age of five if the ASD diagnosis has occurred early enough.

Stem Cell Therapy

Stem cell therapy, despite having the word “therapy” in its name, is not a behavioral training technique but is a medical procedure. However, as with behavioral therapy techniques, it may affect behavior. Stem cells are “blank cells” in a sense, in that they can reconfigure themselves to become any kind of cells in the human body, such as the brain, or liver or heart cells.

When stem cell therapy is used in ASD patients, it’s been found to help reduce certain behaviors, such as improving receptiveness to communication training and even reducing hostility and aggressiveness. However, stem cell therapy is a recent addition to the arsenal of therapies and treatments, and its full range of possible treatment outcomes is not yet completely documented. Stem cell therapy is medically documented to work, as it has already proven its worth as a form of cancer treatment. But now, stem cell therapy is exploring other avenues of treatment, such as Alzheimer’s and ASD, and this is where more research is being conducted, even as more results come in.

It’s always important to remember that different children will have different needs. If you suspect your child has ASD, get a professional evaluation, then decide from there, according to professional medical advice, what’s the most appropriate treatment.