Spinal Cord Injury is caused when the soft tissues that protect the spinal cord dislocate. The spine bones can be broken if exposed to pressure that is harmful to the spinal cord.
Injuries usually occur at different levels of the spinal cord. What determines if a segment of the cord is permanently or temporarily injured is the severity of the damage to the nervous tissue. Most injuries are physiological (Aru, 2008).
The number one cause of death for people with spinal cord injury is what is called ‘the renal failure’. Information for this and other conditions is recorded in the National Spinal Cord Injury Database (since 1973 to present). It was only until the Second World War that people had the slightest hope of ever surviving spinal cord injury. Complications that are associated with it are breathing problems, blood clots, kidney failure, and pressure sores (Levi et al., 1995).
Prevalence of the Spinal Cord Injury
Prevalence is the percentage of individuals in a group having an existing health condition during a certain period. In the USA, two hundred and fifty nine thousand people have been estimated to have the spinal cord injury. The National Spinal Cord Injury Database (NSCID) has recorded that approximately 5,596,000 people have paralysis related to the spinal cord injury. This accounts for almost 1.7% of the population in the USA. More than 1,300,000 have been paralyzed due to a spinal cord injury (Bagnal & Jones, 2007).
The notice of the increase in Spinal Cord Injury victims (SCI) started in 1935. The prevalence was 473 individuals, and it has been on the rise ever since. After the end of the two World Wars, numerous cases were reported. The two World Wars recorded an estimate of 4,450 individuals with SCI. This is only half the number recorded in the 1980’s. Throughout the 1990’s, 2,275 more were estimated to have SCI in the UK. The second millennium ended with 4,187,000 people being said to have SCI (one million less than the current figure).
It has also been observed that it is only developed countries that have had such numerous cases. The skill necessary to treat SCI to full recovery is currently at large. Moreover, the expertise is in the developed economies. It is unfortunate that the developing and the transitional economies do not have such knowledge. This leads to many untreated deaths in most cases (O’Fallon et al., 2005).
Incidence of the Spinal Cord Injury
Incidence is the number of cases of traumatic SCI patients as per the universe of the sample in a year. In this case, the universe is one million. There are approximately 12,000 new cases on SCI each year. This is a rough estimate because in the UK, there is no primary data on incidence solely researched for the UK. It is, therefore, not verifiable if the incidence has changed over the recent years. They, nevertheless, depend on estimates. Between 1986 and 1990, there was an increase in incidence of SCI from 26.5 to 38 individuals per one million inhabitants. This is a sample for the UK (World Health Organization).
The incidence of SCI was majorly caused by motor vehicle crashes in the previous years. Unfortunately, this has changed during the last couple of decades. It has been said that the new leading causes of traumatic patients are falls. Symptoms mostly range from temporary numbness in certain body parts to full blown paralysis in most body parts. The condition is higher in older individuals. The number of adults suffering from traumatic SCI in the USA is currently at 43,137. The incidence among those aged 18 to 63 is more than 54 million during the previous three years.
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