Spinal Cord Injury Grants

Spinal Cord Injuries and Potential Grants – Overview

Spinal cord injuries refer to injuries that significantly damage the spinal cord and can cause the deterioration of an individual’s motor functions.

To qualify for spinal cord injury grants, an individual must have trauma that qualifies as affecting the nerves or functions of the spinal cord.

The location of the damage also impacts the diagnosis of a patient in terms of the severity of permanent damage.

Spinal damage can occur on the cervical spinal cord, thoracic spinal cord, lumbar spinal cord, and the sacral spinal cord of the coccygeal region. These injuries commonly arise from sports, work or hard labor, or accidents.

Types of Spinal Cord Injuries

The two main groups of spinal cord injuries are complete and incomplete injuries.

The categorization is based on the extent of damage to the spinal cord whereby complete spinal cord injuries involve the absolute severing of the spinal cord while incomplete spinal cord injuries are those that compromise the spinal cord to a limited extent.

It is important to note that spinal cord injuries may have varying degrees of pain or discomfort depending on a patient’s prognosis.

Some types of spinal cord injuries under these two main categories include:

1. Central Cord Syndrome (Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury)
2. Quadriplegia (Complete Spinal Cord Injury)
3. Paraplegia (Complete)
4. Brown-Sequard Syndrome (Incomplete)

Symptoms

Even with the different types of spinal cord injuries, some symptoms are common in most spinal injuries ranging from mild symptoms to severe pain. These signs include:

1. Difficulty in motor coordination: This means that an individual is unable to properly move their body parts, especially the arms or legs.

2. Lack of feeling or numbness of the body parts: This symptom means that the patient is unable to feel any of the normal reactions of their body such as being unable to feel pain or heat.

3. Pressure at delicate areas of the body such as the neck or back. Pressure can be a symptom of a serious injury or simple discomfort.

4. Inability to control bodily functions so that the patient feels nothing so that they are unable to feel anything even when they relieve themselves.

5. Intense pain due to pressure on the spinal cord.

6. Weakness in their extremities. The patients may feel that they are unable to complete normal tasks due to muscle fatigue and lack of control of physical parts.

Treatments

Spinal cord injuries are complicated injuries that may require several levels of treatment. The treatments range from medication and bed rest for minor spinal cord damage to surgical interventions that attempt to correct the issues.

In many cases, there is a need for rehabilitation programs for individuals who need to use physical therapy to retain some mobility after severe injuries. However, all interventions and treatments dealing with spinal cord injuries can be difficult to handle especially financially as a result of the numerous medical procedures required.

As such, different bodies offer diverse forms of assistance.

Types of Spinal Cord Injury Grants

There are different types of grants offered for this type of injury by different groups. These groups offer grants based on their target goals in the field of spinal cord medicine. The types of grants include:

These grants target medical research that focuses on discovering potential medication or finding new methods of treating spinal cord injuries.

Others target finding permanent cures for paralysis. These grants offer experimental treatments for free with no guarantee of actual improvement in the spinal cord injury patient.

These experimental treatments can also include new surgical procedures aiming to correct spinal cord injuries.

Grants that offer financial aid. As mentioned previously, treating spinal cord injuries can be extremely expensive due to the different levels of treatment necessary.

This type of grant offers either partial or full financial assistance to victims of spinal cord injuries to help them to handle their conditions.

Grants that offer educational aid in the field of spinal cord injuries.

These grants focus on providing scholarships and educational opportunities for individuals interested in educating the public about spinal cord injuries and how they can affect an individual.

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