Spinal Cord Injuries and Potential Grants – Overview
Spinal cord injuries are injuries that impact the spinal cord and can result in partial or complete loss of motor functions and sensation.
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 impacts both the diagnosis and prognosis of spinal cord injuries, influencing the potential for recovery and the severity of impairment.
Spinal damage can occur in the spinal cord’s cervical, thoracic, lumbar, or sacral regions. The coccygeal region is not typically referred to as a major spinal cord injury site. 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.
The level of pain or discomfort from spinal cord injuries may vary widely and is not necessarily linked directly to the patient’s prognosis but rather to the nature and location of the injury.
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: An individual cannot properly move their body parts, especially the arms or legs.
2. Lack of feeling or numbness of body parts: This symptom means that the patient is unable to feel any of the body’s normal reactions, such as pain or heat.
3. Pressure or pain in the neck or back areas can indicate a potential spinal cord injury, which may require immediate medical evaluation.
4. Loss of control over bodily functions due to a spinal cord injury may include an inability to sense bladder and bowel functions, leading to incontinence.
5. Intense pain due to pressure on the spinal cord.
6. Weakness in their extremities. The patients may feel 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
Different groups offer different types of grants for this type of injury. These groups offer grants based on their target goals in spinal cord medicine. The types of grants include:
These grants target medical research that focuses on discovering potential medication or new methods for treating spinal cord injuries.
Some grants focus on research towards finding permanent cures for paralysis and may support trials of experimental treatments, which often do not guarantee improvement in spinal cord injury patients.
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 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.
See Also
Grants for Weight Loss Surgery
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