Spinal cord injury, Australia 2003-04

Raymond A Cripps

January 2006
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
Canberra
AIHW cat. no. INJCAT 77

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is uncommon, but personal and health system costs per case are high.

This report presents information from the Australian Spinal Cord Injury Register (ASCIR) on new persisting cases of SCI in the year 2003-04. During the year, 247 new cases of SCI from traumatic causes were registered in Australia, 82% of cases involving males. The most common clinical outcome of persisting SCI was incomplete tetraplegia (101 cases). The average duration of initial care of patients with incomplete tetraplegia was 116 days.

41% of cases were related to land transport, and 10% to water-related activities. Cases also occured during sport and work. Falls caused 34% of persisting SCI cases, about two-thirds of these were falls from a height of one metre or higher, largely involving males aged 15 to 64 years, and comonly occuring during paid or unpaid work.

The ASCIR is a collaborative activity of the AIHW National Injury Surveillance Unit and all of the specialist spinal injury units in Australia.

The report is available as a PDF document (~ 797 Kb).

• Page 3, line 15: 'Twenty-three per cent' should read 'Twenty-four per cent'.
• Page 4, Table 2.1 Non-traumatic causes, neurological deficit per cent column: '22' should read '23'.
• Page 12, line 12: '12%' should read '25%'.
• Page 12, line 22: '37%' should read '29%'.
• Page 13, line 6: 'Twenty per cent' should read 'Twenty one per cent'.
• Page 14, line 28: '76%' should read '77%'.
• Page 15, line 7: 'Fifty per cent (n=12)' should read 'Ninety six per cent (n=23)'.
• Page 26, lines 11 and 12: '(23%, n=57)' should read '(26%, n=64)', '(17%, n=43)' should read '(19%, n=48)' and '(14%, n=25)' should read '(14%, n=34)'.
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