Spinal Cord Injury Information

I sincerely hope the information presented will be useful and help you and yours cope with this devastating injury.

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SCI INFORMATION, Injury

This important section is devoted to spinal cord injury, and includes information about the actual spinal cord injury, the changes that take place in the body, the spinal cord and what it does, the spinal column, differences in the type of spinal cord injury, the recovery process and terminology used when discussing SCI.

Spinal Cord Injury Statistics 

  The following information relates to traumatic spinal cord injury. It was compiled primarily by researchers at the University of Alabama using data from the regional SCI Centers nationwide.

Number of New Injuries Per Year:

• 32 injuries per million population or

• 7800 injuries in the US each year

Causes of Spinal Cord Injury:

• Motor vehicle accidents (44%)

• Acts of violence (24%)

• Falls (22%)

• Sports (8%) (2/3 of these are from diving)

• Other (2%)

Since 1988:

• 45 percent of all injuries have been complete

• 55 percent incomplete

Most Frequent Neurological Category By Percent:

• Quadriplegia: complete 17.5

• Quadriplegia: incomplete 31.2

• Paraplegia: complete 28.2

• Paraplegia: incomplete 23.1

• More than 1/2 of all injuries result in quadriplegia

• 92 percent of all sports injuries result in quadriplegia

Causes of Death

  The most common cause of death is respiratory ailment, whereas, in the past, it was renal failure. An increasing number of people with SCI are dying of unrelated causes such as cancer or cardiovascular disease, similar to that of the general population. Mortality rates are significantly higher during the first year after injury than during subsequent years. We are continually finding out about people who have lived 30, 40, and even 50 years after their injuries.