Degree of Spinal Cord Injuries (Nursing)

00:01 Now the third criteria is degree of injury.

00:05 So it's either a complete spinal cord injury or an incomplete spinal cord injury.

00:10 With the complete spinal cord injury, you have a total loss of feeling and motion below the site of the injury.

00:16 With incomplete, there might be some sensation or motion below the injury.

00:21 Remember, it's unique and individualized to each person and each injury.

00:26 Now we're talking about incomplete spinal cord injuries here.

00:29 I'm gonna give you four examples, but we're gonna start with the central cord syndrome.

00:35 Now, this is the most common incomplete cord syndrome that's why we start with it.

00:39 It's called the central cord syndrome because the damage is in the center of the cord.

00:45 You frequently find this in elderly.

00:47 With that, they probably have some type of underlying spondylosis or younger people with severe extension injuries.

00:54 Now remember as we're going through this, use your own neck to recall what an extension injury would look like, what motion that would involve.

01:03 Now, another unusual thing about central cord syndrome is the upper extremity deficit is greater than the lower extremity deficit.

01:13 Sometimes we refer to that as walking paraplegia for just that reason.

01:17 It's more impacted in the upper extremities than it is in the legs.

01:22 Now let's look at anterior cord syndrome.

01:26 Central cord syndrome was in the center.

01:28 Anterior cord syndrome is from injury in the anterior portion of the spinal cord.

01:33 Now you see that in flexion injuries, like a burst fracture, a flexion tear, a drop fracture or herniated disc.

01:40 This shows you immediate paralysis because those corticospinal tracts are located in the anterior aspect of the spinal cord.

01:49 So we've talked about central cord syndrome in the center.

01:52 Now we're talking about anterior cord syndrome and that's in the anterior portion of the spinal cord.

01:59 Now third, I wanna talk about Brown-Sequard. This one is really unusual.

02:04 You have spinal cord damage on one side. And on that same side of the damage, you have motor weakness.

02:11 On the opposite side, you have sensory deficits.

02:14 So if I have a spinal cord injury on the right side, then I have motor weakness on the same side, on the right.

02:22 On the opposite side or the contralateral side, I would have sensory deficit on my left side due to a hemisection of the spinal cord.

02:31 So, Brown-Sequard syndrome may result from a rotational injury such as a fracture dislocation or from a penetrating trauma like a stab wound.

02:40 Okay. So the first two were location; central cord syndrome, anterior cord syndrome.

02:47 Brown-Sequard comes from some type of penetrating trauma or stab wound.

02:52 But remember on the same side of the injury, I have motor loss.

02:57 On the opposite side, I'm gonna have sensory loss.

03:02 Now, the last one is a posterior cord syndrome.

03:06 And I put this one last even though it's all about location because this is really uncommon, right? This is an unusual syndrome that you have but it can happen.

03:15 It's due to an extension injury.

03:18 So, the patient has kind of a loss of positioning sense cuz you've disrupted the dorsal columns.

03:24 So they have a good prognosis, but they're really gonna have to work with some physical therapy after the injury.