101 cases of spinal cord injury. 15-year follow-up study in a large city hospital.

A study was undertaken of the long-term course of traumatic paraplegia and quadriplegia, secondary to spinal cord injuries, in 101 patients admitted to the Philadelphia General Hospital during the past 15 years. These patients belong to a special socio-economic group: poor, with a low level of education and mostly unemployed. We were interested in finding out how the socio-economic status, age at onset, sex, race, and other factors, would influence the prognosis, longevity, outcome of rehabilitation, and period of hospitalization. This study was carried out by clinical examination and by interviewing those patients still in the hospital or the nursing home attached to it, and by reviewing their medical records. The results of the study were compared with other studies in the literature of other groups of similar patients. One striking difference was the predominance of gunshot wounds as a cause in our series. The longevity was comparable, but the outcome of the rehabilitation was not encouraging, with most of the patients becoming hospital-dependent. The authors conclude that this is a very serious social as well as medical problem, and that considerations for its prevention are as important as its management.