Chapters authored
Spinal Cord Injury Prevalence and Treatment Modalities
Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devasting neurological condition producing physical dependency, morbidity, psychological stress, and financial burden. During the last 30 years, its global prevalence has increased from 236 to 1298 cases per million populations. Two types of spinal cord injury are primary and secondary injury. Primary injury is mechanical damage to the cord itself whereas secondary injury results from one or more biochemical and cellular processes that are triggered by the primary lesion. In 1700 BC, in an Egyptian surgical papyrus, they describe the frustration of health care professionals in treating a severe spinal cord injury, the Papyrus reported spinal fractures as a “disease that should not be treated”. Most of these studies approach a patient with acute spinal cord injury (ASCI) in one of four manners: corrective surgery or a physical, biological, or pharmacological treatment method. Science is unraveling the mechanisms of cell protection and neuroregeneration, but clinically, we only provide supportive care for patients with spinal cord injuries. By combining these treatments, researchers attempt to enhance the functional recovery of patients with spinal cord injuries. Advances in the last decade have allowed us to encourage the development of experimental studies in the field of spinal cord regeneration. The combination of several therapeutic strategies should, at a minimum, allow for partial functional recoveries for these patients, which could improve their quality of life. More studies were done on spinalized animals that indicate that most of these pharmacological agents may act on receptors present in the spinal cord, thus facilitate to produce coordinated locomotor movement, whereas some other drugs used to improve the neuropathological changes caused because of spinal cord injury (SCI), such as spasticity or demyelination, to improve walking.
Part of the book: Spinal Cord Injury