What does the respiratory system do?
Your respiratory system (or pulmonary system) is responsible for breathing. This system enables you to inhale oxygen into your blood and exhale carbon dioxide. Your body needs the oxygen to survive, and carbon dioxide must be removed to avoid the build-up of acid in your ...
Pain is a serious problem for many people with spinal cord injuries (SCI). Pain after SCI can occur in parts of the body where there is normal sensation (feeling) as well as areas that have little or no feeling.
Our featured video and brief video clips share information about managing pain after sustaining a spinal cord injury. In this video, SCI Model Systems Researchers share how they helped two individuals with SCI diagnose and manage their shoulder pain, which resulted from wheelchair use.
Respiratory Health and SCI Infocomic
After spinal cord injury, the signals sent from your brain can no longer pass beyond the damage to the spinal cord, making it hard to control the muscles you would normally use for inhaling and exhaling. This comic includes information on respiratory health and SCI and ...
What is the study about?
Pneumonia is the leading cause of death after serious spinal cord injury (SCI). Researchers wanted to learn if spinal cord injury-induced immune deficiency syndrome (SCI-IDS) contributed to the development of pneumonia or whether the motor paralysis and environment accounted for the frequency of contracting pneumonia. They ...
What is the study about?
Survival within two years after spinal cord injury (SCI) has greatly improved over the past few decades, although long-term survival after the first two years has not shown significant improvement. However, people with SCI still have higher rates of mortality than people without SCI. To better ...
What is the study about?
Infections are prevalent complications in SCI patients and are facilitated by a systemic spinal cord injury immune deficiency syndrome (SCI-IDS). This study looked at the effect of pneumonia or wound infection on hospitalized patients with spinal cord injury (SCI). Pneumonia is an infection in one or ...
What is the study about?
This study aims to evaluate how valid (reliable) and efficient two measures are that are used in evaluating people with spinal cord injury. The measures are the Spinal Cord Injury Spasticity Evaluation Tool (SCI-SET) and Patient-Reported Impact of Spasticity Measure (PRISM). The SCI-SET and PRISM are ...
Objective: To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spinal Cord Injury Spasticity Evaluation Tool (SCI-SET) and Patient-Reported Impact of Spasticity Measure (PRISM) using Rasch analysis to optimize their validity and efficiency.
Design: Rasch analysis of the SCI-SET and PRISM represents a secondary analysis of data collected as part of a collaborative ...
What is the study about?
This study’s aim was to describe the relationship between spasticity and perceived quality of life as well as the perceived value of spasticity management approaches for individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI).
What did the study find?
This study found that spasms most often occurred in response to ...
Spasticity is the uncontrolled tightening or contracting of the muscles that is common in individuals with spinal cord injuries. About 65%–78% of the SCI population have some amount of spasticity, and it is more common in cervical (neck) than thoracic (chest) and lumbar (lower back) injuries.
This is a part of the Hot Topic podcast series from the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center on Managing Pain After Spinal Cord Injury. Robert Irwin, M.D., Associate Professor, discusses Predicting Pain to Head it Off.
We do have some data that tendons of people with spinal cord injuries tend to ...