Spinal Cord Injury

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.

A Spinal Cord Injury is damage to any part of the Spinal Cord nerves at the end of the Spinal Canal. Every Year, 17,000 Spinal Cord Injuries are reported in the USA alone. The Most Frequent age for Spinal Cord Injuries is 19. Almost 200 Spinal Cord Injuries were reported for High School Football. People who suffer from SCI (Spinal Cord injuries) can experience muscle weakness, poor coordination, and overactive reflexes.There is many

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.

This results in either a loss of sensation, or a loss of perception. According to the Rick Hansen Spinal Cord Injury Registry, vehicle accidents make up 46% of spinal cord injuries. Acts of violence (from knife wounds or gun shots) make up 11% of spinal cord injuries. Falls and sports injuries make up 24%, industrial accidents (damages from chemicals) make up 5%, and other injuries (such as inflammation of the spinal cord) make up 14% of spinal cord injuries. The survival rate is reasonably high for those suffering from spinal cord injuries, but life will never be normal again. Since the connection between the brain and the receptor or effector is damaged, stimulations may not be interpreted or signals may not reach the effector. This might result in loss of balance, coordination, loss of sensation, uncontrolled movements, and paralysis.

A spinal cord injury does not occur in a single moment. Instead damage will continue to ensue for days to weeks after the initial injury. The initial impact and injury causes the immediate damage and death of oligodendrocytes and motor neurons. However, another wave of damage is caused by the secondary processes that occur after the injury. The spinal cord is a bundle of nervous tissue and neurons protected by the vertebral column that transmits electrical synapses, or messages, from the brain to the rest of the body. It is composed of three layers of membranes and is protected by the bony vertebrae that make up our vertebral column. The spinal cord upon impact will swell and secrete chemicals which will cause an inflammatory response and will kill neighboring cells increasing the amount of functioning lost throughout the body. The swelling can also cut off the blood flow to the

Patient Description: Patient is a 46 yr old male; 3 months post traumatic spinal cord injury. Patient is dependent and bed bound for majority of the day. Patient presents with BUE weakness and poor control and sensation in BLE. Patient also demonstrates poor trunk control and has extensive pain in LUE.

Spinal cord injuries are fractures or dislocations to the vertebrae. Spinal cord injuries can be classified as either complete or incomplete. Complete means that spinal cord can no longer send messages below the injured area resulting in paralysis. With incomplete spinal cord injuries there is still some movement and sensation below the injured area. Spinal cord injuries can be caused for many reason including but not limited to: hyperflexion, hyperextension, axial loading or vertical compression, excessive rotation, or penetrating trauma. Spinal cord injuries are commonly caused by vehicle accidents, violence, falls, and sports injuries.

However, Spearman correlations were generally weak to weak-moderate adjusted for individual subjects. Part of the difficulty in establishing strong correlations with clinical results may be differences in injury mechanism and severity between subjects. While atrophy should be expected in all SCI cases, highly focal injuries will be more likely to create sudden changes in SCCSA as compared with non-traumatic injuries which may manifest as a slightly lower SCCSA throughout the cord. Further examination of these correlations with a larger population stratified by injury mechanism and American Spinal Injury Society impairment scores would be important in examining atrophy changes with injury.

Depending on the extent of injury, you may not be able to walk, sit, stand or lay down normally, without feeling pain. The very nature of such an injury has forced different parts of your body, including elements of the spinal cord, out of their normal bounds.

Setting: Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Research Center (BASIR), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

A 22 year-old graphic designer name Alex A. got into a car accident that led to spinal cord injuries. The spinal cord controls body functions and feelings through ascending and descending impulses to the brain (Groves 1995). This accident prevented the patient’s spinal cord from delivering sensory or motor function below C2. A ventilator was needed for him to breath and he was fed intravenously. For this reason, a surgery was required to stabilize his condition. After five months of rehabilitation at spinal cord injury center, his motor and sensory function improved by being able to move his hands adequately. However, his lower extremities are concerned since he still had problems with mobility and defecation.

To accomplish this task Hauswald et al, approached these questions by reviewing cases of spinal injury where the patients had been immobilized and comparing them to similar cases where the patient was not immobilized. What Hauswald was looking for was the frequency of lasting neurologic damage between the immobilized and the non-immobilized patients who had sustained spinal trauma (1998). This data is the basis for making conclusive relations between spinal immobilization and the overall outcome of patients with spinal trauma. What Hauswald et al,. found was that there was less neurologic disability in the unimmobilized patients, and out-of-hospital immobilization has little or no effect on neurologic outcome in patients with

Theres always alternative treatment for any type of injury. Alterntives inlcudes like NASIDs and muscle relaxnts to control the pain. Some doctors may recommend physical therapy to improve balance, maintain flexibility on the spine etc. If nothing works then the doctor would recommand surgery like Laminectomy which removes the back part thats affecting the vertebra. Laminotomy which removes lamina.

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.

hyperplastic zygapophysis and prolapsed nucleus pulposus [14]. In addition, comparing with the lumbar vertebra, the rear vertebral plate of cervical vertebra was smoother; and was in favor of putting a certain place for service aisle. The introduction of dilators and the working channel was performed under C-arm guidance, and confirmed to the puncture needle located in the vertebral plate. In the process of gradually setting up the tubular retractor, the tubular retractor should be tight fixed and avoid the tubular retractor cut-in the intraspinal via vertebral plate gap to give rise to spinal cord injury. Furthermore, we need to pay attention that the action should be gentle for setting-up the tubular retractor and expanding channel during