“Every lab I saw during a recent visit to China had hugely expensive, state-of-the-art equipment and was buzzing with young scientists. Many of those scientists had been educated in the United States.” -Stephen Minger - U.S. Stem Cell Scientist
REASON FOR COMING TO TREATMENT: Maria’s mother Gabriela first noticed that her daughter was developmentally delayed when she was six months old. After continuing to miss the normal developmental milestones, she was finally diagnosed with a brain injury complicated by Autism at the age of one year and three months. Her mother continued to take Maria to the hospital every year for check ups, and she received regular physical therapy. At 2 years old she was giving an orthopedic boots to assist in her walking. Despite slight improvements, Gabriela failed to discover any treatments that could help Maria’s main deficiencies in communication and learning. After discovering stem cell treatments in China from other families in her country, she determined that it was this therapy that would be the best course of action for her daughter.
TREATMENT: Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Transplants, Cord Serum and Nerve Growth Factor combined with Rehabilitation Therapy.
START OF TREATMENT: January 3rd, 2008
BEFORE THE TREATMENT: While in Romania, Maria had many developmental problems. She was unable to even follow a simple one step instructional order such as “come here” or “point to the bottle”. Though she had some trouble walking and had to wear orthopedic boots, her major problems were in learning, social interaction and in communication. She was unable to speak even a single word and her mother felt that she only reacted to about 20 – 30% of her environment. She was unable to learn even very simple things such as the names of her family and the words “Ma Ma”. When strangers came near her she would either not acknowledge their presence or she would become very agitated crying and throwing sometimes violent fits. Being extremely sensitive to the texture of food, she would only eat the softest things, would not chew thoroughly, and had a very poor appetite and weighed only 11.5Kg at the age of 5. She would spend most of the time stimulating herself by playing with her fingers, sucking on them and licking her hands.
DURING TREATMENT: Maria’s appetite began to improve and her food intake increased. Working with an Occupational Therapist on a daily basis she began to learn shapes, fruits and colors and was able to point to them accurately when asked to identify a certain one. Her overall demeanor and interactions with others also began to improve.
AFTER THE TREATMENT: After being in China for 21 days and receiving four of stem cell transfusions via IV, Maria had already made impressive progress. With the help of daily Physical Therapy Maria has had a substantial improvement in her ability to walk independently. Socially she became much more relaxed when around strangers and was starting to interact with them more and her hostile behaviors to others had dramatically decreased. Her attention span has increased, allowing her to concentrate for longer periods of time on learning tasks. She has also developed the ability to learn simple tasks and follow one step instructions. With the help of the therapists in China, she is now starting to learn simple concepts such as the names of colors. She has also started vocalizing more, and trying to talk with her mother. In addition to these changes, her appetite has improved and she is able to eat a more varied diet. Her mother was excited by these changes and could not wait to get home and continue teaching her daughter new things. FOLLOWING TREATMENT: We received word for Maria’s mother, Gabriela, just weeks after she returned home thanking Beike and the staff for all that they had given to her daughter. Maria has continued to improve and Gabriela has already begun making plans to bring her daughter back to China for another round of treatments in August of 2008.
Maria's mom talking about her experience
Maria Learning about numbers and colors
Below is the mother's letter:
Dear Mrs. Ross-Vaden,
I have a great pleasure in announcing to you that our experience from China was a wonderful trip not only from me but also for Maria including her treatment.
I start to tell you that before the first treatment Maria was a child that saw the entire world from her own inner space. Her modalities of communication with the world surrounding her were minimal.
Her desires, communications, interactions and sensations were very hard to understand.
Before first treatment Maria spit a lot but now she spits less than before. Before treatment she was not embarrassed by her diaper but now she try's to close off it and seems to be embarrassed by it if it is dirty. She was not so sociable like now and now, after treatment, wants to play with everybody. She is more present in reality and can conduct herself more like a normal child. She is also now trying to spell names. She pronounced for the first time "Mamy'' while she was in China. She, in China, learned to step off stairs and lift on her body from down with help of anybody. She understands now what we are talking about more than ever before. All these things happened in China, just two weeks form the start of treatment.
