WE SCHOOL AND NINA FOUNDATION - WELLNESS SEMINAR SERIES - SEMINAR 1

BLADDER MANAGEMENT
Dr. S. N. Sagade, Consultant Urologist, Hinduja Hosptial

Nina Foundation for people with Spinal Cord Injury began its Wellness Seminar Series in December 2008. The 1st of the 6 seminar series titled 'Bladder Management' dealt with creating awareness on how to deal with urinary and intestinal tract problems for people with spinal cord injuries
Attendees: Prof Dr. Ketna Mehta, Dr. S. N. Sagade, Trustees - Dr. V. C. Jacob, Dr. Parinaz Humranwala, Members and Guests of the Nina Foundation, members from Paraplegic Foundation, Cheshire Home and Sharan.

Date : 13th December 2008
Venue : Brainstorm Room, We School
Time : 5.00 p.m. – 9.00 p.m.
The event began when the host of the evening Abhinay Vishnoi welcomed the guests addressing in both English and Hindi. Founder of Nina Foundation Dr. Ketna Mehta welcomed the Chief Guest of the evening Dr. S. N. Sagade, a renowed consultant Urologist of the PD Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai.
Prof Dr. Ketna Mehta (both a faculty at Welingkar and founder trustee of Nina Foundation) then addressed the audience about Nina Foundation, its various activities and initiatives such as the a bimonthly newsletter One World Voice of Paraplegics, Support Group, sports like participating in the Mumbai Marathon, wheelchair cricket and throwball, sponsoring trophies for wheelchair sports, articles and research papers, speakers at various conferences and seminars on spinal cord injury, stem cell treatment survey, outbound programme and employment initiatives for offering work therapy to people with spinal cord injuries. She also announced the Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Day which is to be held on 25th June 2009.

Inaugruation of Nina Foundation's new initiative the 'Spinal Cord Injury Helpline' was done through a participative game and the winner Hardik Dholabhai was gifted a memento. Prof Dr. Ketna also felicitated Neenu Kewlani and Sunita Sancheti as well as students Gaurav Choukasey, Neha Parekh and Khushboo Vaghani for their ideas and initiative towards the Nina Foundation Helpline.

Dr. Sagade then took the stage beginning his lecture on Bladder Management. He began by explaining the anatomy of the urinary tract and enlisting the functions performed by a normal bladder.

He then addressed the issues which arise after a spinal cord injury and the implications on the bladder. By drawing illustrations he explained the neurological connection with bladder functioning. He stressed on the various baseline tests required to detect bladder dysfunction such as urine pathology and analysis, sonography, etc. There was a detailed discussion on the use of various kinds of catheters such as indwelling catheters, condom catheter, etc. and the catherization process was discussed at length.
The usage and function of drugs were highlighted and also surgical procedures used in some cases were explained.
Dr. Sagade also addressed the problems associated with bowel dysfunction. He explained the bowel anatomy and physiology and the various types of bowel dysfunction.

He concluded the session by speaking on the various ways by which one can deal with bowel dysfunction such as diet, fluid intake, digital stimulation, bulking agents, stool softeners, etc.
This was followed by a Q&A session where Dr. Sagade answered the queries of the audience very patiently and in depth. Various questions addressed were on usage of catheters, diet and fluid intake amongst several others. The session ended with Prof Dr. Ketna giving Dr. Sagade a token of appreciation on behalf of both Welingkar and Nina Foundation. The session was very informative and was well appreciated by the audience. This was followed by refreshments in the canteen.