Danger of Spinal Cord Injury That Causes Paralysis

Physical violence against humans, accidents, or injuries when doing sports are some of the main factors that cause injuries or damage to the spine. The nerves in the spine play an important role in the process of sending signals from the brain to the rest of the body and vice versa.

Spinal cord injuries or injuries that result in damage to this part can cause quite serious complications, such as loss of control of movement. If you don't get proper treatment immediately, injury to the spinal cord will lead to paralysis.

There are two types of injuries to the spinal cord that commonly occur, namely traumatic and non-traumatic injuries. Traumatic injuries often occur because the spine is sprained, displaced, or broken due to an accident, fall, or impact of violence. Meanwhile, non-traumatic spinal injuries are more caused by other factors, such as osteoporosis, cancer, bone inflammation, arthritis and congenital bone disorders. Compared with women, men over 65 years old or between the ages of 16 and 31 years are more at risk of experiencing spinal cord injury. Especially if you have a history of health problems related to joints and bones. The risk is also higher in people who often do extreme activities and have congenital bone defects.

 

Paralysis Due to Spinal Cord Injury

Judging from the symptoms, injury to the spinal cord can be complete, partial or local. General symptoms occur if the injury you experience makes you paralyzed immediately. However, if you can still move some parts of your body, this means that the injury symptoms are only local or partial.

Loss of ability to sense and control movement when you experience a spinal cord injury is also divided into several stages, such as:

• Quadriplegia or tetraplegia, is paralysis that affects both legs and arms. Tetraplegia paralysis can occur in the chest muscles which makes it difficult to breathe, so you need assistive devices so that the body gets enough oxygen.
• Triplegia, is paralysis that attacks one arm and both legs
• Paraplegia, is paralysis that attacks half of the body, namely the lower part or both legs.

 

The three paralysis above certainly have different symptoms from each other. However, the common symptoms of spinal cord injury that you can recognize are as follows:

 

• Loss of ability to control movement
• Inability to control defecation or urination
• Respiratory problems occur
• Possibility of impotence in men
• The head is in an abnormal position
• Head hurts
• Loss of sensory abilities such as the sense of taste and feeling touch
• Some parts of the body feel sore or sore

Now you know that spinal cord injuries that don't receive immediate treatment have a big risk of experiencing paralysis. Don't underestimate the pain you experience in your back, especially if it is related to the bones and joints. You can consult an orthopedic specialist at RSU Hermina Medan.