This condition can be caused by an injury to the spinal cord, or a person can be born with this disorder. If you have been diagnosed with spina bifida — a disorder in which the spinal cord has an opening in its coverings ...
Acute back pain may last a few days to weeks while chronic back pain persists for more than 3 months. A nerve modulation technique, known as spinal cord stimulation therapy, is a standard treatment option for chronic back pain ...
The spinal cord is an extension of the central nervous system and plays a critical role in the relaying of nervous signals to and from the brain. Only one vitamin has a documented, proven effect on spinal cord health. Vitamin B...
When the spinal cord is damaged, sensation and movement are often impaired or lost below the level of injury. While there is no cure for spinal cord injuries, research into spinal cord regeneration is ongoing. One of the possib...
You also can get respiratory failure when your lungs can't sufficiently remove harmful carbon dioxide from your lungs. Spinal cord injuries and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD) can cause the condition. Exercises can ...
Your spinal cord runs through the center of your spinal column, which consists of the three portions: cervical, thoracic and lumbar areas. Keeping all three areas flexible through proper stretching plays a key role in maintaini...
A spinal cord injury causes functional loss in one or many areas of the body, depending on how high up and how full the injury is. For instance, a paraplegic is someone with a lower spinal cord injury who has lost function in t...
While the number one cause of spinal cord injury -- SCI -- is automobile accidents, SCIs are on the rise among soldiers as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Complete SCIs leave the victim paralyzed below the point o...
A spinal cord injury can be a devastating event, and learning to function with limitations often requires extensive rehabilitation. Adolescents who suffer from spinal cord injuries are often in even more difficult positions, be...
A hemiplegic spinal cord injury is an injury that results in partial or complete paralysis. These injuries can occur anywhere along your spinal cord, and the location of the injury determines the amount and severity of your par...
Physicians who specialize in treating spinal cord damage tailor exercise programs to individuals. Stretching is a small part of most rehabilitation programs and the exact exercises and the frequency and length that patients do ...
Some rehabilitation programs for spinal cord injuries only focus on learning to live with your injury. Others focus on recovering movement and locomotion by using aggressive exercise and patterned neural activity. Patterned ne...
The spinal cord carries messages between the brain and the body, but injuries from incidents such as falls and car accidents can impair that line of communication. The relationship between the brain and the rest of the body is ...
The spinal cord -- the part of the body that relays nerve signals from the brain -- is made of boney disks known as vertebrae that stack on top of each other to form a column. A sudden blow to the vertebrae -- for example, from...
Spinal cord injuries below T12 affect your lower back, anal sphincter muscle and may damage your defecation reflux. Such injuries can range from mild to severe. Exercise, a good mental outlook and activity play important roles ...
Rehabilitation after injury is one of the best ways to return to full function. Rehab may consist of certain medications, the application of ultrasound or microcurrent therapy, ice massage, bed rest and exercise. It may even in...
Spinal cord shock from riding a bicycle can be painful, preventing you or discouraging you from future riding. It can be caused by improper riding techniques and a variety of environmental factors. Because spinal cord shock can...
The spinal cord is an essential element of the nervous system that runs the length of the back and is encased within the vertebrae for protection. The spinal vertebrae are numbered according to their corresponding sections of t...
Suffering a spinal cord injury alters the basic functions of your body. Health complications like osteoporosis, restrictive lung disease, deep vein thrombosis, joint dislocation and skin breakdown are serious concerns for some...
Living with a spinal cord injury comes with a host of concerns, including complications such as osteoporosis, urinary tract infection and pressure sores. A balanced diet can help maintain health and prevent complications. Striv...
Suffering a spinal cord injury is a physically traumatic event. Your body changes significantly after a spinal cord injury, and your diet must change to reflect that. Failure to monitor your diet may lead to unwanted weight ga...
Spinal compression can occur as the result of an injury, fall, car accident; or you may have a compressed spine because of a degenerative condition like spinal stenosis. Because there are so many conditions that can cause a com...
Each year thousands of Americans receive spinal cord injuries primarily as a result of motor vehicle accidents and falls. The effects of such injuries can range from mild to profound. Research is being conducted to determine ho...
Those who have sustained a lower body injury or are suffering from a neurologic or muscular disorder as well as brain and spinal cord injury and stroke patients may find walking difficult. Relearning to walk can be a long, diff...
Spinal cord injuries typically result in a degree of loss of motor function or sensation. What type of injury and where it is located can determine the severity and physical limitations. Once you have recovered from a spinal co...
Paraplegia is a major medical condition characterized by partial or complete paralysis of the lower extremities. This type of paralysis occurs as a result of damage to certain areas of the spinal cord, which runs from your neck...
After a spinal cord injury, a person's nutritional needs often change. In addition, people living with spinal cord injuries are often more vulnerable to health issues than the average person. These include obesity, high blood p...
Spinal cord rehabilitation often involves treatments designed specifically for your individual condition, so you should not perform any of these exercises without the express direction of your doctor. Since injuries to your spi...
Spinal cord injuries often result from damaged pieces of fractured vertebrae, or spinal disks, tearing into the spinal cord or pressing on nerves that transmit signals to your brain, which causes paralysis below the injury leve...
A spinal cord injury typically refers to a fracture or dislocation of the spinal cord vertebrae as a result of a sudden, traumatic blow. This damage, depending upon the state of its severity, may impair the use of the body, esp...
The need for fitness is universal and applies to people with disabilities -- including those with spinal cord injuries. People with limited mobility engage in exercise for the usual reasons: to improve fitness, lose weight, str...
Compression anywhere below the T12 vertebrae can lead to lower back pain, shooting pain down the leg and possible loss of leg function in severe cases. One common compression syndrome below the T12 vertebrae is sciatica where a...
After a spinal cord injury, a person's nutritional needs often change to accomodate the body's new condition. In addition, eating well is even more important after a spinal cord injury for healing and future health. A nutritiou...
After a spinal cord injury, keeping a positive mental attitude and doing everything you can, including exercise, can make a profound difference in your quality of life.
Unfortunately, most spinal cord injuries result in lifelong disability. Continued research, development of newer therapies and treatment techniques do offer hope. In 1995, Christopher Reeve fell from a horse and suffered a spin...
Spinal cord injuries can affect any of the 30 segments of the spinal cord, including the eight cervical, 12 thoracic, five lumbar and five sacral vertebrae. However, the most severe injuries typically occur from the fifth throu...
Spinal cord injury can occur to any area of the spine, including the cervical, thoracic or lumbar areas or the neck, chest or lower back. Where the injury occurs will determine what symptoms or loss of function a person experie...
Your spinal cord is one of your body's nerve centers, providing movement and sensation to all areas of your body and relaying messages to your brain. Spinal cord injury can damage nerves, leading to loss of feeling and/or motor...
The Mayo Clinic reports that a spinal cord injury often causes loss of movement and sensation below the injured area, resulting in permanent disability. Hsiao-Yu Chen endeavored to define the emotional stages in response to a s...
Symptoms associated with ALS are physical manifestations of the advancing loss of muscle control. Other motor neuron diseases and nervous system disorders often cause symptoms similar to those that occur with ALS, also known as...
A disorder characterized by compressed spinal discs is called cervical spondylosis. As a person ages, the bones and cartilage in the spine begin to degenerate and form bone spurs. The degeneration of the cervical disks and join...
According to the Spinal Cord Information Network, exercise can improve mobility in the spine and help patients return to normal daily activities. If muscles and joints are not used, they tend to stiffen and exacerbate symptoms ...
Failed back surgery, chronic low back pain and reflex sympathetic dystrophy are all painful diagnoses that can affect mobility and functioning. A spinal cord stimulator is used to treat the pain signals generated by these illne...
The lower end of the spinal cord floats in fluid within the bones at the end of the spine, attached to the tailbone by a thin elastic thread of tissue. In some children, developmental abnormalities cause fixation of the end of ...
A tethered spinal cord results from tissue attachments in the spinal canal that cause abnormal spinal cord stretching. Release surgery seeks to sever those attachments to avoid or reverse neurological impairment. Several factor...
Tethered spinal cord syndrome can be alleviated by surgery to the lumbar spine. This is generally performed in children because the maturing spinal column grows and stretches the spinal cord, and sometimes the spinal roots beco...
Fractures of the lumbar spine, five vertebrae found at the lower end of the back, can have serious long-term consequences. The vertebrae surround and protect the spinal cord, so damage to the vertebrae can also damage the spina...
According to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, there are about 5.6 million people in the United States with a spinal cord injury. When the spinal cord is damaged, the patient undergoes profound physical and psychologic...
Spinal cord injury results in the interruption of nerve signals between the brain and the periphery of the body. This leaves the patient with profound loss of various functions as well as psychological impairment. Specifically,...
Other common causes of numbness in the fingers are damage to the blood vessels or circulatory system disorders. Prickly or burning sensations, medically referred to as paresthesias, often occur in conjunction with numbness.
A tethered spinal cord can present the patient with neurological impairments that can vary widely, from barely recognizable to profoundly disabling. Usually the symptoms first appear in childhood where there is adequate time to...
Tissue attachments that limit movement of the spinal cord cause a condition known as tethered spinal cord disorder. Abnormal stretching of the spinal cord occurs due to this progressive disorder, and it may not be diagnosed unt...
The brain stem, the bottommost section of the brain, connects the rest of the brain with the spinal cord. This means that all nerve transmissions must travel through the brain stem. The brain stem consists of specialized areas ...
Rehabilitation care can be done on an inpatient or outpatient basis. Typically, rehabilitation care is sought by patients struggling with physical and mental conditions caused by head injuries, stroke, spinal cord injuries, neu...
The spinal cord carries motor commands and sensory information between the brain and the periphery. Damage to the posterior spinal cord--whether due to disease, tumor, or injury--can result in devastating consequences because t...
People who are living with spinal cord injury can do just about anything that anyone else who is not paralyzed can do: they just have to find alternative ways to do it. Part of spinal cord injury rehabilitation is teaching pati...
Anterior spinal cord injury results in what is known as anterior cord syndrome. This is an incomplete spinal cord injury that usually results from a bone fragment or disk herniation producing an infarction, or occlusion of an a...
Spinal cord injuries are becoming more and more common. In fact, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation estimates that there are more than one million people living with some type of spinal cord injury in 2010. A spinal cord...
A diagnosis of spinal cord injury, including paraplegia and quadriplegia, often brings to mind an image of a person in a wheelchair. However, a spinal cord injury does not necessarily keep a person from walking. In fact, many p...
These disks are designed to absorb impact and to allow for mobility of the vertebrae, which is how a spine can bend and twist. Occasionally, however, one of these disks can slip out of place, causing nerve and spinal cord irrit...
The other, more serious type of muscle wasting is called neurogenic apathy, a result of injuries or diseases that affect the nerves' ability to control muscles. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, examples ...
The spinal cord is divided into four segments: cervical, thoracic, lumbar and sacral. Together, they make up a vital part of the body's central processing nervous system; injury to the spinal cord can be grave and sometimes fat...
Most often, spinal cord compression is caused by spinal stenosis, which is the narrowing of the spinal column in the neck, upper back or lower back. Slipped disks or bone growth from arthritis can compress the spinal cord as it...
The spinal cord is an integral structure of the nervous system that sends signals from the brain to nerves in the body and relays signals from nerves in the body to the brain. Thus, damage or injury to the spinal cord can resul...
MayoClinic.com reports that a spinal cord injury can have debilitating effects on a patient. It can cause permanent disability or paralysis or loss of movement in several areas. It can also make a person lose sensation on the a...
Wide varieties of medical procedures are used for the brain. These tools aim to diagnose illnesses, study the maturation of the brain and to treat certain conditions. Currently, some of them are mainly used in medical research,...
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that causes demyelinization of nerve coverings over parts of the brain and spinal cord. Multiple sclerosis, or MS, affects women more often than men, and usually occurs between the ag...
A person with MND experiences mobility problems and has difficulty in swallowing, talking and breathing. The disease, first described by French physician Jean-Martin in 1874, affects the motor neurones in the brain and spinal c...
The brain and spinal cord form the human body's central nervous system. The spinal cord is the primary pathway by which the body conducts sensory information from the peripheral nervous system to the brain. The brain processes ...
Part of the central nervous system, the spinal cord contains nerves, such as sensory and motor nerves, that relay information between the brain and body. When the spinal cord is injured, that communication becomes disrupted. Ce...
The brachial plexus is a collection of nerves that extend from the spinal cord into certain regions of the upper body, including the shoulders, chest, arms and hands. A person can be diagnosed with acute brachial neuritis if th...
According to the National MS Society, MS, or multiple sclerosis, is a chronic, often disabling disease that attacks the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. In MS, the body’s immune system attacks myelin, which is the fat...
Under normal circumstances, neurons that control movement, or motor neurons, send electrical impulses to the brain stem and spinal cord and, ultimately, to the muscles. Over time, MND interrupts or stops the progression of elec...
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke points out that most spinal cord injuries cause the vertebrae to fracture or compress and do not completely sever the spinal cord tissue. The signs of a spinal cord in...
Symptoms of spinal cord injury may present as emergency symptoms or more generalized symptoms that mimic other disorders. A common misconception is that spinal cord injuries always involve paralysis, when in fact, they may only...
Spinal cord injuries are classified according to the site, or level of injury, and as complete or incomplete. Complete, means there is absence of all motor, sensory and vasomotor function below the level injury. Incomplete, mea...
A spinal cord injury is a direct injury to the spinal cord or damage to the bones, tissues or blood vessels that affect the spinal cord. According to Medline Plus, risk factors include participation in dangerous or strenuous p...
While advances in medical science, especially emergency procedures immediately following an injury to the spinal cord, have helped to reduce the risk of permanent damage, the results of a spinal cord injury can still be very se...
A spinal cord injury may cause permanent disability or paralysis. The injuries can range from a temporary loss of sensation and ability to control movement to a permanent injury that leaves patients completely unable to control...
The spinal cord houses essential nerves responsible for vital body functions, such as breathing and movement. A traumatic injury to the spinal cord can have devastating physical effects. The spine runs from the base of the skul...
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS is a motor neuron disease that affects the nerve cells that control voluntary muscles. ALS is characterized by a progressive deterioration of the motor ne...
The University of Washington states that cerebrospinal fluid, the fluid in the brain and spinal cord, has four major functions: transporting hormones, protecting the brain, removing waste and creating buoyancy. When too much ce...
Approximately 12,000 spinal cord injuries occur each year in the United States, according to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. About 41 percent of these injuries occur as a result of automobile accidents. Men ...
Charcot joint--neurogenic arthropathy--is a condition that occurs when nerve injury leads to destruction of a joint. There is bilateral involvement in between 9 percent and 35 percent of cases according to the "AAOS Comprehens...
The National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center estimates that approximately 12,000 people in the United States sustain a spinal cord injury each year. Of those, 81 percent are men and 19 percent are women. The average age a...
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disorder affecting the brain and spinal cord. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, an MS support group website, the disease is unpredictable and disabling. Most people are diagnos...
The spinal cord may become compressed if it is damaged, such as after trauma, or through the disease process. Merck reports that the spine may become compressed over time (such as with cancer), or suddenly (such as after an acc...
A spinal cord injury can happen to just about anyone, though most occur in young men. According to the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), approximately 25 percent of Americans are currently living...
Spinal cord injuries are fairly common, and can result in a range of disabilities from mild pain and weakness to complete paralysis. According to the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), between 10,...
Several potential causes of spinal cord compression exist, including trauma, bony growths, cancer and swelling. When the cervical spinal cord is compressed, regardless of cause, a similar set of symptoms occurs. These symptoms ...
Numbness refers to a strange sensation in which people cannot feel certain body parts. Numbness can affect the hands, legs, arms or feet. Sometimes, problems in the brain or spinal cord can lead to numbness in different parts o...
The spinal cord may become severed or injured due to accidents, acts of violence or physical diseases such as polio, according to Dr. Edward Benzel of the Cleveland Clinic Spine Institute. Depending upon the extent and location...
The human spinal column is made up of a number of bones called vertebrae. These contain nerves that help carry and receive signals throughout the body. If the spinal cord is injured due to fracture, the vertebrae sustain a smal...
Dorsal cord stimulators, more commonly known as spinal cord stimulators, are electronic devices that are implanted and serve to treat chronic pain. They do not cure pain but instead work to lower it. This should result in a hig...
Neural foraminal stenosis is a spinal disorder that can cause significant discomfort. The condition occurs when a hole (usually through bone) through which nerves pass through the spinal cord becomes constricted, or starts narr...
The body's movements are generated from an elaborate interaction between brain, spinal cord, nerves and muscles. Most muscle movements are voluntary, although the thoughts or stimuli that generate them are sometimes unconscious...
They act as a shock absorber and hold the vertebrae of the spine together. A total of 23 vertebral discs are present in the spinal column, according to Peter F. Ullrich Jr., MD. Disorders of the spinal discs can be caused by ag...
A neurologist is a doctor who specializes in disorders of the nervous system. This includes not only the nerves but also the brain, spinal cord and muscles. The educational and training requirements to become a neurologist are ...
The back is a complicated section of the body, consisting of a combination of bones, muscle, and nerves. Because the spinal cord runs through the back, relatively minor problems can cause severe pain and other symptoms, such as...
When this happens, the pain is intense and often debilitating. Spinal cord compression can happen suddenly from an accident or over time from a variety of conditions. Compression that happens over time usually begins as just a ...
This condition is a result of a neural tube defect. Between the third and fourth weeks of pregnancy, the embryo's neural tube (a narrow opening) should close and form the brain and spinal cord. This crucial development is not c...
Almost any activity can lead to a spinal cord injury. Most spinal cord injuries are a result of automobile accidents, falls and sports injuries. It's possible to prevent many spinal cord injuries by following safety precaution...
