Five Times More Seniors with Spinal Cord Injuries Now than 30 Years Ago
The number of spinal cord injuries among senior citizens (age 70 and above) has grown fivefold in the past 30 years, as compared with younger spinal cord injury patients, researchers at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Jefferson’s Regional Spinal Cord Injury Center of the Delaware Valley recently reported.
As the population within the United States ages, it is estimated that 20% of its population will be older than 65 by 2040, and this aging of the population will likely have an impact on medicine and spinal cord rehabilitation centers as these patients become a larger proportion of the spinal cord injury (SCI) population, as well. The findings were presented by Jefferson neurological surgeons at a meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, of the Joint Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.
“Spinal cord injuries in older patients are becoming more prevalent,” said James Harrop, MD, assistant professor of Neurological and Orthopedic Surgery, Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, one of the study’s primary investigators. “The mortality of these patients is much greater than younger patients and should be factored in when considering aggressive interventions and counseling families regarding prognosis.” They also found, however, that these patients have had an increase in survival over this period.
Admissions by geriatric patients with SCI has increased five-fold and the percentage of geriatric patients within the SCI population has increased from 4.2 percent to 15.4 percent since 1980. In comparison to younger patients, geriatric patients are less likely to have severe neurological deficits but have higher rates of mortality. Researchers reviewed a database of 3,481 consecutive acute penetrating and blunt spinal cord and spine-injured patients treated at Jefferson Regional Spinal Cord Injury Center over a 28-year period (1978-2006).
Overall annual admissions for SCI at Jefferson’s Spinal Cord Injury Center have increased 60 percent since the early 1980’s, but geriatric SCI admissions have increased more than 580 percent during that same time period, the researchers found.
“This increase is likely a result of an aging population and propensity for these patients to have SCI with minor trauma,” Dr. Harrop noted. “Falls continue to be the predominant mechanism for geriatric spinal cord injuries with 74 percent of geriatric injuries resulting from a fall in this series.”
To read the complete press release, please visit www.jeffersonhospital.org/news/2007/article13840.html.
Genetic Link to Spina Bifida Discovered
After more then ten years of investigation, researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Canada announced that they have identified three mutations in the VANGL1 gene that causes human neural tube defects in both mice and humans. It is the first gene discovered in humans that can be linked to neural tube defects such as spina bifida.
“We’ve known for years that there’s a genetic component, and now we’ve discovered one of the culprits,” said Dr. Philippe Gros, James McGill Professor of Biochemistry and Distinguished Scientist for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) at McGill.
Gros added that the discovery wouldn’t have a major impact on the search for a cure yet, but it can have an immediate impact on diagnosis or risk assessment, which would allow physicians to decide whether to follow a pregnancy more closely.
The VANGL1 gene codes for a protein that cells need to line up properly during development. When the gene is mutated it causes cells to lose their orientation, which is needed for neural tubes to close without gaps exposing nerve tissue.
The findings were recently reported in an issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. To learn more, please visit www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2007/04/05/spina-bifida-mutation.html.
