My granddaughter was born unable to make enough white blood cells. For the first year of her life she was severely immunocompromised, and then her bone marrow stopped making enough platelet and then red blood cells. She was getting one or 2 shots of hormones to stimulate her blood cell production every day by the time she was 9 months old.
At 15 months, she received an umbilical cord blood "bone marrow transplant" which completely replaced her old bone marrow. It changed her blood type and even changed the "sex" of her bone marrow. A DNA test of her blood shows 45 XY while cells from the rest of her body show 45, XX.
Umbilical cord stem cells are technically "adult" stem cells, and seem to have all sorts of wonderful possibilities. The cells' usefulness has been limited by the small amounts/volume available. Roni could benefit because her needed volume of bone marrow cells was small at 15 months. An older child might not get enough cells for the sample to grow fast enough to replace their old bone marrow. (For some reason, the media never lets us know that this would also be a problem with embryonic stem cells)
There are researchers working on adult stem cells all over the world. Some are working on making adult cells become stem cells. Others are working on ways to make stem cells and cell cultures multiply on different "matrixes."
Here's much more information (although there is too much emphasis on embryonic stem cells, in my opioion, in this article):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8123-987123,00.html