Recent decades have seen decreasing rates of injury in the young but increasing rates — particularly from falls — in older people.
Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) frequently leads to permanent neurological disability. The lack of restorative therapies for SCI makes prevention very important. Our current understanding of the epidemiology of SCI is based mainly on data from several decades ago, before significant improvements in road and vehicle safety. Now, investigators have analyzed records from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) to provide up-to-date information about the incidence and causes of SCI in the U.S.
The NIS databases contained records for 63,109 patients with acute traumatic SCI (as defined by International Classification of Diseases criteria) between 1993 and 2012. Based on this sample, the overall nationwide incidence of SCI remained stable at appr…
Reviewing Author
DisclosuresSpeaker’s bureauGenentech
Grant / Research supportNational Institutes of Health/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; Michael Goldberg Stroke Research Fund
Editorial boardsPLOS One; Scientific Reports
Leadership positions in professional societiesNeurocritical Care Society (Research Committee Member)
DisclosuresSpeaker’s bureauGenentech
Grant / Research supportNational Institutes of Health/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; Michael Goldberg Stroke Research Fund
Editorial boardsPLOS One; Scientific Reports
Leadership positions in professional societiesNeurocritical Care Society (Research Committee Member)