WHO report highlights spinal cord injury
WHO – the World Health Organisation – has just released a new report on the impact of spinal cord injury around the globe. It summarizes the best available evidence on the causes, prevention, care and experiences of people with spinal cord injury.
By mapping the experiences of people with spinal cord injury it will help health policy makers and disability campaigners to identify where there are gaps in provision.
The importance of trauma is also highlighted. Up to 90% of spinal cord injury cases worldwide are due to traumatic causes such as road traffic crashes, falls and violence though variations exist across different regions.
“Potential treatments are being developed that could help reduce the devastating impact of spinal cord injury, but when they become available – to be effective – they will often need to be delivered very quickly to newly injured patients,” said Dr Mark Bacon, Spinal Research’s Director of Research. “Thankfully in the UK our major trauma services are advanced and have been recently centralised to hopefully further improve outcomes, but for those with cord injury it is clear work remains to ensure that highly specialised spinal cord injury care is available at all point of need regardless of where a patient is in the system.”
“Spinal Research were active members of the National Spinal Cord Injury Strategy Board, which was instrumental in developing national defined clinical care pathways for patients and their integration with ‘newly-developed’ major trauma networks in the UK. This is a step forward but it is important to underline the need for specialist spinal cord injury services for every patient from the moment of injury right through – no matter where they live.”
The WHO report: “International perspectives on spinal cord injuries” was developed in association with the International Spinal Cord Society and Swiss Paraplegic Research, and launched on the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on 3 December 2013.
