Essay On Spinal Cord Injury

What happens when the spinal cord is injured? Spinal cord injury is normally a sudden and unexpected blow to the spine that cause fractures, compression or dislocation of the vertebrae. The initial injury terms spinal shock is the immediate and primary blow to the spinal cord. Upon the impact of injury to the spinal cord, nerve signaling stops an there is a disruption of signal transfer that may become absent for a while even when there is no visible damage to the cord. When the injury is so that the nerves are cut or severed, and are unable to be repaired, impulse transfer of these nerves are destroyed permanently. A fractures or severance can cause blood vessels to be ruptured and blood to leak into tissues in and around the spinal cord causing pressure by blood clots on the cord. The swelling inside of the spinal cord spread within seconds to minutes, thus pressure is exerted to spinal cord and nerves and blood flow to spinal tissues are compromised or decreased. As circulation is disrupted, blood pressure is decreased and the basic self-regulatory mechanism of the body is disrupted. The changes that takes place due to the initial injury is termed spinal shock and can last for a short or a long time. The use of the term spinal shock has caused controversy with neurologist, relating to mechanism and duration of

During this process the body itself gets rid of the injury and unhealthy cells (apoptosis). The process of apoptosis destroys nerves in the ascending and descending pathways and causes axons to become dysfunctional and preventing messages from being relayed to the brain. Another major issue and problem with spinal cord injury is scarring. After the initial injury, astrocytes-glial cells that support the brain and spinal cord-separate the injury area from normal tissue. This result in the formation of scar tissues preventing reconnection and regeneration of axons and information to the