Paralysis/SCI Frequently Asked Questions


1.  What is “SCI”?
SCI is an acronym for spinal cord injury. SCI/D stands for spinal cord injury and disease.·         

2. Someone I love just sustained a spinal cord injury. Help!
Information is priceless for those associated with new injuries. This article (Acute Spinal Cord Injury) is full of timely information, including what questions to ask the doctors. We recommend you read it and print it out for family members.
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3. What are ASIA levels, injury levels, complete and incomplete injuries?
Understanding SCI requires learning a new vocabulary…Here are explanations and illustrations of the functional impact of complete vs. incomplete and various injury levels.
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4. Who gets spinal cord injuries?
Gender: 77.8% of new SCI’s are male.
Age: Average 32.1 years (55% are between 16 to 30 years old).
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5. How many people have spinal cord injuries?
The incidence rate of SCI in the US is about 40 cases per million; over 11,000 new cases occur each year, a new one every 41 minutes. Current estimates of Americans living with spinal cord injuries range from 225,000 to 400,000. The University of Alabama has a program to estimate the prevalence of SCI based on extrapolation from 13% of injuries.

6. How do people get spinal cord injuries?
Motor vehicle accidents: 47%
Falls: 24%
Acts of violence: 19%
Recreational sporting activities: 8%
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7. Is there a cure for spinal cord injury?
Scientists have stopped saying “The nervous system cannot regenerate”, but they have not yet found the key to repairing a damaged spinal cord. Work in this field is ongoing and results are encouraging. This article, “10 Frequently Asked Questions About Cure of SCI”, explains the current state of SCI research and what to expect for the future.

·8. What causes death among the SCI population?
Most common causes of death are pneumonia, pulmonary emboli and septicemia.

·9. What is the survival rate after SCI?
85% of people that survive the first 24 hours after SCI are still alive 10 years later.
  
 
Sources:
NSCISC at University of Alabama
Neurosurgery Today
Dr. Wise Young