PARAPLEGIA ESSAY

* Following a SCI, the first priority is often to help the patient develop as much possible strength in the

Spinal cord injury is a sudden and devastating event for patients. The injury can be extremely debilitating and it may require a significant alteration in lifestyle post injury. P.R. has sustained a relatively high level (C6) spinal cord injury, which makes him very limited functional capacity. He will go through grieving process followed by anger for the loss of function and independence. This may be especially difficult for P.R. because he is a young man in his thirties who sustained a debilitating injury in a foreign country without any support from family and friends. Spinal cord injury has left P.R. unable to move his entire lower extremities and trunk muscles. He is unable to do the most basic activities, such as feeding and bowel movement without the help of a caregiver. For a young man who was active and completely independent, it is very difficult to accept this reality. It should also be noted that most of the nursing staff are females, which further damages his male ego for having total dependence.

Paralyzed Veterans of America is a nonprofit organization serving for veterans founded in 1946. This foundation, unlike other ones, has developed a unique and deep research on the diverse and several issues that veterans have been going through when suffering spinal cord injuries or dysfunctions produced at war times. Paralyzed Veterans of America was born when a group of soldiers injured at World War II reunited to service their disable fellows. Paralyzed Veterans of America recruits members with energy, experience, dedication and passion to enhance the aims of the organization.

The featured film documentary called ‘Murder Ball’ directed by Dana Ruben and Alex Shapiro focuses on Mark Zupan and Joe Soares life of a Quadriplegic person. I have responded to the main characters and their situations including how they make me feel about the lives of Quadriplegic people and how they deal with it during their lifetime. My overall impressions about Mark Zupan and Joe Soares lives as a quadriplegic has encouraged me to respond not to feel sorry for them but to gain respect and be inspired .I will be discussing the film techniques to support my ideas in the documentary.

(modified from a case study by Patrick Field, Kean University and Tom Cappaert, Central Michigan University)

Autonomic dysreflexia is a complication of spinal cord injuries. “It is a massive, uncompensated cardiovascular reaction mediated by the sympathetic nervous system” (Lewis, 2014, p.1784). There are many factors that need to be explored in relation to the complication of autonomic dysreflexia in spinal cord injuries. These factors include etiology, pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, diagnostics, and collaborative care.

Now that I have shared a brief overview of the spinal cord and some statistics about spinal cord injuries, we will look at the past research that has led to the treatments most commonly used today. In 1990, a steroid called dexamethasone was discovered in human trials to preserve some motor and sensory function if administered at high doses within 8 hours of injury. Surgery used to remove fluid, tissue, or bone fragments, or to stabilize fractured vertebrae by fusing bones or inserting hardware has also proven to be one of the most thorough measures to prevent further harm. I received both of these treatments after my accident, and they are the same that have been used for the past decade. Until recently, doctors had no way of limiting such disabilities, aside from stabilizing the cord to prevent added destruction, treating infections, and prescribing rehabilitative therapy to maximize any remaining capabilities.

How would people act or feel if their body is slowly weakening? Nancy Mairs, The author in the story “On Being A Cripple” shows that being a cripple does not make you different than anyone else. She also shows the reader that discriminating yourself will not just make it worse but it will be a disaster. To her she is a normal person but to others they see a “disabled” or “handicapped”.By using her experience on being a cripple, Mairs effectively draws the audience into her argument and shows them the good and the bad side of her condition. She uses many strategies that will make it easy for the readers to understand her essay. Mairs uses vivid descriptions, experience and her emotion to describe her life as

The interventions that I observed was the use of contrast bath for the Chronic Regional pain, E-stim, Ultrasound, hot packs for the pain management as well as to decrease the stiffness and swelling. The activity that I observed were ROM arc to increase movement in the bilateral upper extremities, sand box to increase core strength, Theraputty, peg boards, cognition pattern puzzles, visual perception puzzles, arm bike (rollator), bolts and screw for fine motor coordination, mini mental test to intact orientation as well as memory. I observed how therapist were teaching the patients to increase independence while transferring from bed to wheelchair to commode. I observed the use of adaptive devices to make the patient as functional as possible with their daily activities such as long handled shower brush, Reacher, sock aid, leg lifter, adaptive heavy weighted utensils and many

Afflicted by left-side Hemiplegia and bound to a wheelchair, my grandmother’s life was not one of ease. By the time I was born she had been living with her barriers for thirty years and had learned to compensate due to her astounding will and surrounding subpar medical practices. As a child I thought nothing of the fact that my grandmother was stricken with paralysis until I witnessed her take a turn for the worse and suffer another hemorrhagic stroke. Her recovery was long and arduous yet, it was a blessing that brought us closer together and nudged me down the path of Occupational Therapy.

The central nervous system is what connects the brain to the muscles of the body. When a patient has an injury to the spinal cord, movements in certain parts of the body will be affected based on the location of the injury. If the injury affects hand motion then many day to day tasks are affected. This literature review seeks to understand how an injury to the spinal cord impacts movement, and what has been done so far to help those affected by spinal cord injuries.

The body parts discussed in the article is acquired spinal cord injuries in children. This talks about how the children lives I changed since the accident. The main idea of this article is to compare activity performance and participation Meaning, how their lives have changed negatively in social participation, mental stability, and self-confidence. A lot of the cases they talk about how they miss out on the activities that were able to participate in because of the SCI. For example, many stated not going to friends houses because they can’t get to the home. Another student said the reason she does not attend sleepovers is because of bowel and bladder complications she suffered after the incident. Also

The limited space within the vertebrae actually plays an important roll in spinal cord injury. Once the initial injury occurs the body, as with every other part of the body, tries to protect the injured area with swelling. But the swelling occurs within the small confines of the spinal column and causes further damage to the surrounding tissue. It has only recently been discovered how much of an impact this secondary damage has. One of the areas of crucial ongoing research is on what kind of window of opportunity medicine has in treating these types of injuries and still attaining the best recovery.

A review of the literature regarding spinal immobilisation has been undertaken using databases for PubMed, MEDLINE, CINAHL, OVID and Cochrane EBM. Reviews were electronically searched using the subject headings “spinal injuries”, “spinal immobilisation” and “management of spinal injuries”. The results generated by the search were limited to English language articles and reviewed for relevance to the topic. The aim of this literature review is to compare and contrast the views on spinal immobilisation and to achieve a better knowledge of evidence based practice.

live in the community. Most of SCI patients are treated from CRP. Most of the patients are male and they are one of the earning members in their family because it is very difficult for the paraplegia person to returning their previous works and activities properly as like as past. For this reason the married person is seen to take care of by their wives in admission period at hospital. It was easy for the researcher to gather information from persons with