[johnlewis]

Hello,

I am recently semi-paralysed as a result of a hernia operation.

I'm looking for any information/papers about correlation between delay in operating and the degree of eventual damage sustained. I

wonder if you could suggest or send me any academic articles that deal with this question?

More info:

I live in Belgium where I was left to wait for an operation for 23 hours after I began to lose feeling/movement in my legs in the hospital's A+E. This was noted by the nursing staff but my surgeon was not informed.
The research that I've been able to access seems to indicate that the 'golden opportunity' is to operate within 6 to 8 hours of paralysis being observed. I'm now looking for evidence that supports this view. This is necessary for my court case for compensation here in Belgium.

Any articles, published papers or links to further sites would be much appreciated. The problem is that much research is only available to medical institutions, libraries etc, not to me as an individual...

As I said; any help will be most welcome.

Thank you for your time.

Yours,
John Lewis

[Iain]

John

Have you tried http://scholar.google.com ?
I tried the sesarch term:
Cord AND compression AND (prognosis OR outcome) AND delay -tumour -tumor -malignant -metastatic

This produced a lot of relevant looking articles. Your local library should be able to get those that you cant get via the internet.

Iain (a medic)