A Patient's Experience with Spinal Cord Injury and Paralysis
Each year, between 28 and 55 individuals per million persons in the United States are afflicted with traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). Over 10,000 new cases of SCI are reported in the United States every year with a prevalence of over 230,000. The evaluation and management of patients with spinal injury is often complicated because it generally occurs in the context of polytrauma. In addition, rehabilitating these patients is more complex because of the functional limitations placed upon the patients as a result of the neurologic injury. Despite improvements in both medical and surgical management of patients with spinal cord injury, the overall prognosis for both incomplete and complete injuries has not changed significantly over time. The future for potential treatments remains bright, however, because many different potential therapies are being developed based upon a constantly expanding knowledge of the basic cellular and molecular processes that regulate primary injury, secondary injury, repair, and regeneration.
This article reviews in detail the acute management and pharmacologic treatment for spinal cord injuries and reviews promising treatments, including growth factor-based therapies, cell-based therapies, therapies targeted at maximizing the host environment, and function-based therapies. CME Credit is available
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