Tag: Autonomic Dysreflexia

Australia's champion wheelchair racer Kurt Fearnley says from his first Paralympics, in Sydney 2000, he has heard stories about boosting – the practice among athletes with spinal cord injuries of inflicting trauma on themselves, such as breaking a toe or sitting on their scrotums, to raise their blood pressure and improve performance.

People who get serious spinal cord injuries have to adjust to a lot. That may be why, in the first year after their injuries, they are at serious risk for a potentially fatal condition called autonomic dysreflexia. Autonomic dysreflexia shows that the body can take itself down if its signals are ignored.

Autonomic dysreflexia often goes unrecognised in patients with spinal cord injury. Health professionals must be able to recognise when patients are at risk. A young patient with tetraplegia arrives in the emergency department with a severe headache, dilated pupils, beads of sweat on their forehead, chest pain, bradycardia and a blood pressure of 280/130. What do you think is happening? Recreational drug use? A hypertensive crisis with a renal, endocrine or neurological cause? Is your immediate response to carry out an electrocardiogram and blood tests? In fact, this life-threatening emergency could be caused by something as simple as a full bladder.

SCI-U is a series of 10 multimedia courses about learning to live with spinal cord injury. The courses have been designed to give you the information you need to live a healthy, active life. They were developed by people who live with SCI, in collaboration with researchers and clinicians.

Autonomic Dysreflexia Autonomic dysreflexia (AD) is a potentially life-threatening medical emergency that affects people with spinal cord injuries at the T6 level or higher. Although...

The nervous system controls movement, sensation, thinking and behavioral activities. It consists of various elements which comprise the whole complex working process. It is...

Nerve damage to the bladder is a common side effects of having a spinal cord injury, other injury, surgical procedures, and several disease processes....

When living with a spinal cord injury (SCI), there are more challenges than just not being able to walk. There are other healthcare issues...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – In a new study, researchers at The Center for Brain and Spinal Cord Repair at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical...

Bryan Kirkland could always spot a booster. Sweaty arms, shaky legs and "chicken skin" were telltale signs of the dangerous practice, banned from the...