Acute spinal cord injury: analysis of epidemiologic factors.

The authors studied the epidemiologic aspects of acute spinal cord injury in 358 patients admitted to the Toronto General and Sunnybrook hospitals between 1948 and 1973. The ages of the patients ranged from 14 to 89 years (median 32 years) and the male:female ratio was 4.5:1. The most frequent causes of injury were traffic accidents (34.4%), accidents at work (29.3%), sports-recreational injuries (15.4%) and falls at home (9.8%). Several epidemiologic factors were identified which are important for developing programs to reduce the frequency of cord injury. In particular young persons should be made more aware of the risks they run as automobile drivers and of the hazards of diving in shallow water, middle-aged workers in the construction industry are at risk of spinal cord injury from falls and elderly farmers are at risk of falling from lofts or being crushed by overturned tractors.