Health Issues - Paraplegia
I've chosen to write my report on paraplegia. Paraplegia is paralys of the legs and lower body, and is caused by damage to the lower spinal cord. Spinal cord injury resulting in Paraplegia or Quadriplegia is most often caused by a severe accident. Statistics show that the majority of Paraplegics and Quadriplegic sustain their injury from road accidents, and these along with diving and other sporting accidents affect many young people for the rest of their lives. Spinal injury, resulting in Paraplegia and Quadriplegia, can also occur if the spinal cord is damaged through a disease, which causes infection, or if there is a tumor on the spine.
There are more than 12,00 people living in Australia with a spinal cord injury. In 2001 and 2002, there were 398 spinal cord injuries. 91% of these resulted in neurlogical loss. 60% of the injuries in 2001 and 2002 were from traumatic causes, and of those 46% were caused by motor vehicle accidents, 31% were caused by falls and 12% caused by sport. 60% of injuries were incomplete. The cervical segments had the highest frequency of injury, particularly C4 to C6.
Each vertibrae in your spine has a letter/number code to represent it. The cervical (neck area) vertibrae are named from C1 to C7, the thoracc (upper back) vertibrae are named from T1 to T12, the lumbar (middle back) vertibrae are named from L1 to L5 and finally the sacral (lower back) vertibrae, which are named from S1 to S5. The higher the injury in the spine, the worse the result will be, because everything below the injury will have functioning problems.
T-1 injuries are the first level with normal hand function. They can perform all functions of a non-injured person, with the exception of standing and walking, although this is also...
More Diseases
essays:
Discuss the Social Aspects of Health Issues Related to Poverty and Deprivation Subject - Health Related To Poverty
... their house, consume about 20 liters per day. It is very little when compared to an average person living in the UK, which consumes an average of 150 liters a day. Water related diseases such as cholera and dysentery are on ...
Year 10 HIV health assignment
... to prevent this disease from become an epidemic in Australia and the effort has been successful, as the statistics show there had been a major reduction of the incidence of HIV/AIDS in the past decade. Bibliography --http://www.kidshealth.org ...
Alzheimer's Disease, includes a .bmp diagram not visible in ansii
... and CAT scan to rule out the possibility of brain tumors. A spinal tap is also performed to determine the possibility of other ... is triggered by an external force e.g. a head injury.(Statement,1996,p.4). Finding the specific location of the ...
AIDS
... attack the nervous system, causing damage to the brain and spinal cord. The presence of an 'opportunistic' disease plus positive test for ... original tumor site. Paths of Transmission In the last five years, clinical observations, epidemiological statistics, and ...
Creative Therapy Studies - Living With Sciatica; Describe how disease can affect our daily lives.
... network in the pelvis. It is formed from several lumbar spinal nerves. The sciatic nerve runs down each leg from ... violent injury, recent suspicion of cancer, loss of weight and pains in the back of the chest. In addition ...
Understanding Spinal Cord Injury
... or upper chest. Approximately slightly more than 50% of all spinal cord injuries result in quadriplegia, rather than paraplegia. The higher the spinal cord injury is on the vertebral column, the more effect that it ...
Stem Cell Research
... formation in living organisms, most especially in the bone marrow) as well as mouse embryology. A stem cell has the ability to treat and cure disease along with the possibility of helping those with spinal cord injuries. There ...
Explore an Issue: Responsibility for Heart Disease Should cigarette smokers have to pay for their own health care in a place where free health care is offered? For example in Canada.
... was genetics as they may have ended up with heart problems even if they hadnt taken up smoking. We live in a society where all of our citizens have access to free health care that is supplied by the government ...