[stepsmit]

I am doing some basic research and would like to hear from anyone who knows approximate populations of adult paraplegics in America.

Thanks

Stepsmit

[Apparelyzed]

Is this of any use:

Incidence: It is estimated that the annual incidence of spinal cord injury (SCI), not including
those who die at the scene of the accident, is approximately 40 cases per million population in
the U. S., or approximately 11,000 new cases each year. Since there have not been any overall
incidence studies of SCI in the U.S. since the 1970's it is not known if incidence has changed in
recent years.

Prevalence: The number of people in the United States who are alive today and who have
SCI has been estimated to be between 721 and 906 per million population. This corresponds to
between 183,000 and 230,000 persons. Note: Incidence and prevalence statistics are estimates
obtained from several studies. These statistics are not derived from the National SCI Database.

The National Spinal Cord Injury Database has been in existence since 1973 and captures data
from an estimated 13% of new SCI cases in the U.S. Since its inception, 24 federally funded
Model SCI Care Systems have contributed data tothe National SCI Database. As of September,
1999 the database contained information on more than 19,648 persons who sustained traumatic
spinal cord injuries. All the remaining statistics on this sheet are derived from this database or
from collaborative studies conducted by the Model Systems.

Detailed discussions of all topics on this sheet may be found in a special issue of the journal,
Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, published in November, 1999.

Age at injury: SCI primarily affects young adults. Fifty-five percent of SCI’s occur among
persons in the 16 to 30 year age group, and the average age at injury is 32.1 years. Since 1973
there has been an increase in the mean age at time of injury. Those who were injured before
1979 had a mean age of 28.6 while those injured after 1990 had a mean age of 35.3 years.
Another trend is an increase in the proportion of those who were at least 61 years of age at
injury. In the 1970's persons older than 60 years of age at injury comprised 4.7% of the
database. Since 1990 this has increased to 10%. This trend is not surprising since the median
age of the general population has increased from 27.9 years to 35.3 years during the same time
period.

Neurologic level and extent of lesion: Persons with tetraplegia (51.6%) have
sustained injuries to one of the eight cervical segments of the spinal cord; those with paraplegia
(46.3%) have lesions in the thoracic, lumbar, or sacral regions of the spinal cord. For the
remaining persons, 0.7% recover prior to discharge and 1.4% are persons for whom this
information is not available.

Since 1990 the most frequent neurologic category is incomplete tetraplegia (29.5%), followed by
complete paraplegia (27.3%), incomplete paraplegia (21.3%), and complete tetraplegia (18.5%).
Trends over time indicate an increasing proportion of persons with incomplete paraplegia and a
decreasing proportion of persons with complete tetraplegia.

Ref: http://www.rickhansenregistry.org/sites/ri...20statistics%22

[milosh]

is there such an info for europe [EU and non-EU]?