General

Perinatal Care for Women with Spinal Cord Injuries: A Collaborative Workshop for Consensus on Care in Canada

Hocaloski S, Elliott S, Hodge K, McBride K, Hamilton L, McBride C, Basso L Summary: There are currently no standards of care for women with SCI during pregnancy and labour & delivery in North America. To address this, a one day workshop was held in Vancouver in November 2013. The workshop addressed issues of care providers' lack of knowledge of non-medical issues during pregnancy, physical and attitudinal barriers to access to care for women with SCI, and the need for better collaboration and communication between care providers. Recommendations for knowledge generation and research priorities were made during the workshop. Since the workshop, two information sources for women have been developed and are available online. Topics in SCI Rehabilitation. 2017;23(4): 386-396.

Modeling the Patient Journey from Injury to Community Reintegration for Persons with Acute Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury in a Canadian Centre

Santos S, Gurling J, Dvorak MF, Noonan VK, Fehlings MG, Burns AS, Lewis R, Soril L, Fallah N, Street JT, Bélanger L, Townson A, Liang L, Atkins D.  PLoS ONE. 8(8): e72552. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0072552.

The impact of spine stability on cervical spinal cord injury with respect to demographics, management, and outcome: a prospective cohort from a national spinal cord injury registry

Paquet J, Rivers CS, Kurban D, Finkelstein J, Tee JW, Noonan VK, Kwon BK, Hurlbert RJ, Christie S, Tsai EC, Ahn H, Drew B, Bailey CS, Fourney DR, Attabib N, Johnson MG, Fehlings MG, Parent S, Dvorak MF; RHSCIR Network. Spine J. 2017 Jul 1. pii: S1529-9430(17)30306-6. doi: 10.1016/j.spinee.2017.06.032.

Summary: One of the most common types of spinal cord injury is known as central cord syndrome, which is traditionally described as a cervical (neck) injury that results in more weakness in the arms than in the legs. It is often seen in people who are injured by falling and hitting their head, and over-extending their neck. However, doctors often have differing views on how to diagnose central cord syndrome. The study found that using spinal column stability to classify central cord syndrome is more accurate than traditional rules.

This study uses data from the Rick Hansen SCI Registry.