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Now, spinal cord injuries can be complete or they can be incomplete.
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If we're talking about a complete spinal cord injury,
there's a total loss of feeling and motion below the injury site.
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So remember we looked at those pictures where someone had a complete spinal cord injury.
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They have completely lost any feeling, sensation, temperature, pain, etc. below the site,
but they've also lost motion.
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An incomplete spinal cord injury is the one that's really different and unique in each patient.
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There could be some sensation, there might be some motion, it's not gonna be normal function,
but it's not gonna be as complete as a severed spinal cord injury.
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So, let's talk about some examples.
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Now, there's anterior cord syndrome.
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You've already got something to link that to, right?
You know. Go back and look at - we showed you the diagram of the spinal cord.
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What type? Sensory or motor is located in the anterior section?
Now central cord syndrome is gonna be right in the middle.
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Posterior cord syndrome is going to be what we would call the back or the posterior portion.
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Brown-Sequard syndrome, that one is really interesting.
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And then we'll talk about cauda equina syndrome.
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Okay. So these are five examples of spinal cord injury syndromes
and we're gonna walk through each one of these in a little more detail.
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So an acute spinal cord injury,
if it's an incomplete injury that's an example of like bruising or tearing of the spinal cord.
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Bruising of the spinal cord is actually more common than tearing,
and you're more likely to see the bruising.
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Now a patient might have no motor ability or sensation ability below the injury,
might have paraplegia or quadriplegia which we refer to also as tetraplegia.
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But an incomplete spinal cord injury is more common than complete.
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And remember, it might be from - bruising is the most likely the common cause or it might be from tearing.
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Okay. Remember we talked about those five types of spinal cord injuries.
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Well, we classify them according to what part of the cord is damaged.
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For example; anterior, posterior and central cord syndromes,
they refer to injuries that are in the front, back and center of the normal spinal cord.
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So if it's anterior, it's in the front. If it's posterior, it's in the back.
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And if it's central, it's in the middle.
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Now, the Brown-Sequard syndrome, this injury might be to the left or right side
but you have both paralysis and loss of motion so it's a really unusual one.
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Now cauda equina, that's a lesion that you have,
maybe injury to the nerves between the first and second lumbar region, really, really low.
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So an incomplete spinal cord injury often caused by bruising, sometimes with tearing,
we classify it by the location of the injury: front, back, middle or the Brown-Sequard.
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Which is really not very common but if you get to see it, it's fascinating.
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And finally the cauda equina lesion.