Overview
Introduction
A spinal cord injury is not only an injury at one level of the spine.
A spinal cord injury is not only an injury at one level of the spine. It is an evolving neurological emergency that can impair ventilation, circulation, sensation, movement, bladder and bowel control, and temperature regulation. The nurse must protect remaining cord function while looking for physiological problems that may be more immediately fatal than the neurological deficit itself. The first hours centre on airway and breathing, exclusion of haemorrhage, support of spinal cord perfusion, prevention of harmful movement, and repeated neurological assessment. Later priorities shift toward venous thromboembolism, pressure injury, respiratory secretion retention, neurogenic bladder, neuropathic pain, spasticity and autonomic dysreflexia. The Canadian Spinal Cord Injury Best Practice Guideline, or Can-SCIP, spans this entire continuum.