Types of Spinal Cord Injury: Covering Basic Anatomy, Treatment, and Recovery from Spinal Cord Injury
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- Опубліковано 11 лип 2024
- Spinal Cord Anatomy
• The cervical spinal cord: This is the topmost portion of the spinal cord, where the brain connects to the spinal cord, and the neck connects to the back. This region consists of eight vertebrae, commonly referred to as C1-C8.
• The thoracic spinal cord: This section forms the middle of the spinal cord, containing twelve vertebrae numbered T1-T12.
• The lumbar spinal cord: This is a lower region of the spinal cord, where your spinal cord begins to bend. There are five lumbar vertebrae, numbered L1-L5.
• The sacral spine: This is the lower, triangle-shaped region of the spine, also with five vertebrae. There is no actual spinal cord in this section, it is made up of nerve roots which exit the spine at their respective vertebral levels.
Spinal Cord Injury Types
Complete Spinal Cord Injuries
Complete SCIs are the most serious and occur when the spinal cord is injured, eliminating the brain’s ability to send signals below the injury site. For an injury impacting the lumbar spinal cord, for example, it can lead to paralysis below the waist while preserving your motor functions in your upper body and arms (paraplegia). For complete injuries in the cervical spine, however, this often leads to a loss of motor function in the lower and upper body (tetraplegia, which is also known as quadriplegia).
Incomplete Spinal Cord Injuries
Incomplete SCIs commonly result from compression or damage being inflicted to the spinal cord that reduces the brain’s ability to send signals below the injury site. Because of the partially-compromised condition of the spinal cord, incomplete injuries vary drastically from person to person. Some sensory and motor functions may be slightly compromised in some or nearly eliminated in others. Additionally, some incomplete injuries result in triplegia, or the loss of sensation and movement in one arm and both legs.
Some of the most common types of incompleteinjuries include:
• Anterior cord syndrome: This type of injury, to the front of the spinal cord, damages the motor and sensory pathways in the spinal cord. You may retain some sensation, but struggle with movement.
• Central cord syndrome: This injury is an injury to the center of the cord, and damages nerves that carry signals from the brain to the spinal cord. Loss of fine motor skills, paralysis of the arms, and partial impairment-usually less pronounced-in the legs are common.
• Brown-Sequard syndrome: This variety of injury is the product of damage to one side of the spinal cord. The injury may be more pronounced on one side of the body; for instance, movement may be impossible on the right side, but may be fully retained on the left.
The most common types of spinal cord injuries include:
• Tetraplegia: These injuries, which are the result of damage to the cervical spinal cord, are typically the most severe, producing varying degrees of paralysis of all limbs. Sometimes known as quadriplegia, tetraplegia eliminates your ability to move below the site of the injury.
• Paraplegia: This occurs when sensation and movement are removed from the lower half of the body, including the legs. are typically more severe when they are closer to the top vertebra.
• Triplegia: Triplegia causes a loss of sensation and movement in one arm and both legs, and is typically the product of an incomplete spinal cord injury.
SCI Treatment
Every injury is different, but common treatments for a spinal cord injury may involve:
• Care to address, but not treat, your immediate symptoms. For instance, a ventilator can help you breathe and a feeding tube can help you eat if you are unable to do so.
• Palliative care to help you be more comfortable. If you struggle with insomnia or chronic pain, your doctor might prescribe medication to help.
• Lifestyle changes, such as a healthier diet or giving up smoking.
• Physical therapy to help retrain your brain and body; many spinal cord injury survivors are able to regain significant mobility with physical therapy.
• Family and individual counseling to help you cope with the pain and stress of life with a spinal cord injury.
• Surgery as needed to correct injury-related health problems.
Spinal Cord Injury Recovery
Physical Recovery
Some common milestones for physical recovery include:
• The reduction of swelling at the site of the injury.
• Recovering from surgery.
• Regaining some sensation below the site of the injury.
• Regaining some movement below the site of the injury.
• Learning to use assistive devices such as wheelchairs and prostheses.
• Finding new ways to complete old tasks;
Psychological Recovery
Spinal cord injury guides, as well as doctors, lawyers, and loved ones, often focus on physical recovery. But this can actually undermine your psychological recovery. Poor psychological health can worsen your physical health. It is possible to be happy even in the face of a painful injury. Indeed, one study found that 86% of quadriplegics rated their lives as better than average. - Наука та технологія
I am spinal cord injury patient from India plz tell me any treatment
I know this is not the place, but I highly doubt any doctors would be able to diagnose me without a bunch of exams, a lot of $$$$ and even then they would make guesses at most.
Did I have a small spinal cord injury or not? Here's a brief record of the symptons in chronological order:
- I live a sedentary lifestyle for years, working from home, barely leaving the home. I go out carrying some shopping bags from the supermarket (22 pounds on each hand, 10 kilos each side)
- I arrive home, after 6 hours my back slightly hurts, I rest, I felt this before and it lasted for 3 days so I should had paid more attention to it as a warning sign...
- 3 days later, out of the blue, sudden fever, feeling super weak, wake up the next day a big part of my lungs feel like they're compromised (can't pull air in except small amounts) and everytime I try to stand up the breathing shortages intensify (a 30 second walk to the bathroom felt like I was going to die out of breath, had to come back to the bed and lie down to breathe... during this period I noticed that if I kept myself slightly curved - instead of walking straight - would help with being able to breathe more air so I could have more time walking)
- probably musculature on my back is too weak and causes the breathing problem? that would be one diagnosis, but then would it also explain the other symptons below? that's the puzzle I'm trying to figure out...
- couldn't feel the taste of food or water, compounded by a feeling of "bad" taste in the mouth, it felt like a taste of metal in the mouth... plain water tasted like crap, so I started hydrating myself with instant juice, at least that didn't taste horrid... no caffeine intake for the 1st week
- the breathing got back to normal after 1 week (full lung capacity, no feelings of breath shortage anymore)
- another sympton: during all this time I felt like my brain was super "slow", even watching videos on youtube to passtime or watching TV scenes with too much motion felt overwhelming, I couldn't follow what was going on (that sympton got better after 2 weeks) A muscular problem would cause neurological problems? That's why I suspect it has to do something with the spine.
- it's been 1 month now...
- no breathing problems after 1 week, brain "slowness" gone away after 2 weeks, started feeling the taste of food and plain water after 2 weeks... 3rd week I didn't feel any major improvement besides being able to tell if the room is cold or hot (I wasn't able to tell before)
- now it's the 4th week, nothing feels different besides the fact I can spend a little more time standing up before feeling tired, and I don't need to curve while walking anymore... I still feel like my right leg is more numb than the left, sudden motions of turning cause slight dizziness I avoid them, walking very slowly...
- I have no idea what happened... did I have some sort of spinal cord injury from a cracked lower back disk maybe? I never imagined the body could become this weak? scary?
But anyway thanks for stopping by whoever read all this... take care of yourselves, don't make the same mistake as me, take a walk at least once a week, I wasn't doing even that since my wife took care of most of the food shopping, our bodies are surprisingly fragile, I'm terrified, and the scarier thing is that I'm only 32, wow
Unfortunately we can't provide feedback on specific injuries here. You need to see a doctor who can diagnose and provide a course of treatment to ensure your condition does not worsen. Concerns surrounding insurance and cost are natural but in the long run your health is worth it.
I have myelomalacia at c5/6 do you have any information on this? I can’t find anything but horror stories 😢
Spine ka khuch problem hai kya usame bataoge kya
Sir muje MRI riport bataoge kya
Iam a man..34 years age...6 months back due to exercise, my cervical spine got swelled a little bit, I can feel that little abnormal swelling with my hands & I feel pain when iam working infront laptop in office, is there a way to cure my cervical swelling...if u have any solution plz reply... 🙏👏
Lol hey there, you’re missing a whole lot of info for recovery- as a 13 yr SCI patient myself- the lack of information any medical practitioners give out- is frankly INSULTING
Samantha, thank you for watching and providing feedback. While we would like to be able to cover more in our videos we balance that with being concise with different subjects in each video. Recently we published a video on Activity Based Therapy and the role it has in recovery (which we feel can be big), we hope you will watch it ua-cam.com/video/NMX7bAHiE24/v-deo.html . Please continue to provide feedback on videos you would like to see in the future.
Samantha how do u recover please help. Me am also suffering from a spinal cord injury since four years
You probably dont give a damn but does any of you know of a way to get back into an instagram account??
I was stupid lost the account password. I appreciate any tricks you can give me