Spinal Cord Injury (SCI)

This section of the website aims to give advice and information on aspects of a Spinal Cord Injury, this advice is from our perspective and is aimed more towards SCI like Chris (Tetrapalegic C6) although some parts may apply to other levels of injury.

What is Spinal Cord Injury? A Spinal Cord injury can happen to anyone and completely changes a person’s life. An injury to the Spinal Cord is impossible to generalise, as there so many different levels in the spine, a C6 (C stands for Cervical vertebrae – a break in the neck) for example, has no hand movement (although sometimes they can) yet a C7, just a few millimetres lower down the spine, may have some function in part of their hands. This also depends on whether a person is complete or incomplete. These terms simply mean that if you are complete you will have no voluntary movement or sensation below your level of injury, yet if you are incomplete you may have some or a lot of control or sensation.

A Tetraplegic is a term given to those SCI sufferers that have lost the motor/sensory function in the cervical segments of the spinal cord, meaning that they have little or no control or sensation in the hands, arms, trunk, legs and bladder and bowel organs. Chris is a typical C6 Tetraplegic as he has no control or sensation below his level of injury.

We are still constructing this part of the website and will continue to add different parts of what is involved in a spinal cord injury and problems that can arise and our perspective and experiences of them, check back soon…

Below; an xray of Chris' neck.