Brief Introduction to Spinal Cord Injury part 2

 (Continued)

Hey!! I know I am a little late again but I promise not to delay my posts again and let’s start from where we left in the previous post and complete what we started. I know this topic is a little boring but this is important to understand what SCI is so as to understand the things I was and what all I will talk about.

Ok, out of the 5 topics which I was covering in these posts, 3 of those I had already discussed about the remaining ones are:

1. What are the two main types of paralysis in SCI?
2. What is the recovery time and cure for SCI?

To read about other points click here

So, before we start, we need to first understand what paralysis is. Now, paralysis is the loss of muscle function in any part of the body. It can be either complete or partial, can occur on one side or both sides of the body, can occur in just one small area or could be wide spread.

Now, this happens when something goes wrong in the connection between our brain and the muscles. Most of the paralysis are caused due to strokes or injuries like a spinal cord injury.

Different types of paralysis are shown in the picture below from which can get an idea which type of area is effected in each type. 

Now, I am a complete paraplegic person as my lower body including my legs are totally paralyzed i.e. I have no motor or sensory power in the lower portion of my body.

Now, according to the above said different types of paralysis the two types which occur in a SCI person are:

• Paraplegia
• Quadriplegia

Now, in paraplegia as already explained a person loses the connection between the brain and the muscles of the lower part of his/her body including both of the legs. This happens primarily because he/she hurt the spinal cord at thoracic or lower level.

While in quadriplegia a person loss’s the connection between the brain and the muscles of the body below the neck region. This happens when the person injures his/her neck.

Here, I would like to add it is not necessary that the SCI paralysis is always complete, there can be certain motor or sensory power present in a person’s body. It all depends on how severely the spinal cord is damaged.

Generally, we see more complete paraplegics and incomplete quadriplegics. This is due to the fact that the thickness of our spinal cord is more in the neck area in comparison to the lower region of our body making it stronger in that region.

Now, the second point and I guess the main point which you all want to read about and that is

“What is the recovery time and cure for SCI?”

To answer this question, first we need to understand a little about our nervous system. How it works, what are its regenerative properties. Our nerve cells do not regenerate like other cells of our body. What I mean by this is that whenever we get an injury, the cells which are damaged in that area are replaced by new and healthy cell, which does not happen in the case of nerve cells. Also, in our body the number of nerve cells do not change after we are born. The only change which happen in our nervous system is the length of the cells so that they can reach our whole body while it grows and reaches its full length.

Unfortunately, as such there is no way at present to reverse the effects of a cord injury. But I would like to add that it’s not entirely impossible to say that there is no recovery from this injury as there are many cases where people have seen recovery. If the recovery ours, it generally starts from the first week to six months’ time after the injury, some people also experience small improvements up to two years from the injury. But the fastest rate of recovery is during the first 6 months.

Now, I don’t want to disappoint anyone who is an SCI person and the above-mentioned time period has passed for them, there are certain people who have defied these parameters and till now science cannot fully explain how it has happened. According to these people, where they have reached is because of their will to improve. The biggest example for this I can give is of Patrick ‘pat’ Rummerfield. Now his recovery is to a whole different level, after his accident he was only given 72 hours to live but now he is sometimes referred to as the world’s only fully recovered quadriplegic. From this we can say that nothing is impossible.

Also, there are many researchers who are trying different techniques to improve the regenerative properties of our nerve cells, for which till now they are not very successful. However, there are certain new technologies available in the market which surely can make our life easier. I have listed a few which I think are useful as follows:

1. Modern Wheelchairs
2. Electronic aids for daily living
3. Functional Electrical Stimulation
4. Brain Computer Interface (BCI)
5. Wearable Robots (Exo-Skeleton)

While these are not the cure but they certainly make your life quite easy. Researchers have made a lot of improvements in recent years but still we are not near a complete cure for Spinal Cord Injury. But the researchers are quite positive that they will find a way to cure paralysis completely.

I guess, I have explained about Spinal cord Injury in a very simple and informative way to the best of my abilities. If you still have any queries, please feel free to contact me.

Also please give suggestions on which topics should I cover in the next my blogs.

Till then I would thank you and will talk to you all in my next blog.