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World J Orthop. Jan 18, 2015; 6(1): 24-33
Published online Jan 18, 2015. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v6.i1.24
Chronic complications of spinal cord injury
Nebahat Sezer, Selami Akkuş, Fatma Gülçin Uğurlu
Nebahat Sezer, Selami Akkuş, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Faculty of Medicine, Atatürk Training and Research Hospital, 06800 Bilkent-Ankara, Turkey
Fatma Gülçin Uğurlu, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Atatürk Training and Research Hospital, 06800 Bilkent-Ankara, Turkey
Author contributions: Sezer N and Akkuş S contributed equally to this work; they performed the literature research, designed and wrote the paper; Uğurlu FG performed the literature research.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Nebahat Sezer, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Faculty of Medicine, Atatürk Training and Research Hospital, 06800 Bilkent-Ankara, Turkey. nsezer1994@yahoo.com
Telephone: +90-312-2912525 Fax: +90-312-2912726
Received: October 24, 2013
Peer-review started: October 25, 2013
First decision: December 13, 2013
Revised: January 2, 2014
Accepted: April 25, 2014
Article in press: April 29, 2014
Published online: January 18, 2015
Processing time: 453 Days and 3.1 Hours
Abstract

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a serious medical condition that causes functional, psychological and socioeconomic disorder. Therefore, patients with SCI experience significant impairments in various aspects of their life. The goals of rehabilitation and other treatment approaches in SCI are to improve functional level, decrease secondary morbidity and enhance health-related quality of life. Acute and long-term secondary medical complications are common in patients with SCI. However, chronic complications especially further negatively impact on patients’ functional independence and quality of life. Therefore, prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of chronic secondary complications in patients with SCI is critical for limiting these complications, improving survival, community participation and health-related quality of life. The management of secondary chronic complications of SCI is also important for SCI specialists, families and caregivers as well as patients. In this paper, we review data about common secondary long-term complications after SCI, including respiratory complications, cardiovascular complications, urinary and bowel complications, spasticity, pain syndromes, pressure ulcers, osteoporosis and bone fractures. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of risk factors, signs, symptoms, prevention and treatment approaches for secondary long-term complications in patients with SCI.

Keywords: Spinal cord injury; Chronic complications; Management of complications; Long-term morbidity; Secondary morbidity of spinal cord injury

Core tip: Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a important clinical condition that can lead to lifelong disability. Additionally, the secondary complications following SCI, especially long-term complications, increase morbidity and decrease community participation and health-related quality of life. Improving functional level and quality of life are essential goals of rehabilitation in patients with SCI. Therefore, it is important to be aware of chronic complications of SCI and learn how to manage these complications for the recovery and rehabilitation process. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of chronic complications of SCI.