Volume 26, Issue 122, April 2022

An extremely favourable outcome in a patient with traumatic spinal cord injury with paraplegia: A case report

Prateek Upadhyay^1♦, Ratnakar Ambade²

¹Post Graduate Resident, Department of Orthopaedics, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences (Deemed to be University), Wardha, Maharashtra, India
²Professor, Department of Orthopaedics, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences (Deemed to be University), Wardha, Maharashtra, India

^♦Corresponding author
Post Graduate Resident, Department of Orthopaedics, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, Wardha, Maharashtra, India

ABSTRACT

Spinal cord damage caused due to trauma are very frequent in the population presently and large number of these patients suffer severe neurological deficits which rarely regain their normalcy. Several studies indicate that patients with ASIA grade A (complete) spinal cord injury show recovery of at least 1 to 2 grades if operated within a day of trauma and this outcome becomes dismal with passage of time. This case report mentions about a polytrauma patient who came to us with complete paraplegia and incontinence of the bladder and bowel, 7 days following a traumatic lumbar spine injury, underwent spinal fixation and decompression and showed exceptional recovery in subsequent follow-ups which in itself is an interesting and fairly uncommon outcome in such patients. This case report demonstrates that there is a possibility of regaining excellent functional outcomes in patients who have suffered extreme injuries to the spinal cord where treatment was delayed and also stresses that detailed research needs to be conducted as to determine the factors that may improve outcomes in such patients.

Keywords: ASIA Impairment scale, Spinal Cord Injury, Lumbar spine, Paraplegia

Medical Science, 2022, 26, ms113e2175

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.54905/disssi/v26i122/ms113e2175

Published: 01 April 2022