What problems do children with spinal cord injuries need to be aware of?

  Spinal cord injuries in children under 14 years of age are relatively rare, accounting for only 5% of all spinal cord injury patients. The main causes are traffic accidents, falls from height, spinal cord bulge, spinal cord vascular malformation and sports injuries. In the spinal cord injury rehabilitation department, it is not difficult to encounter children with spinal cord injuries, the youngest being only 2 years old.  How is the rehabilitation of children with spinal cord injury different from that of adults?  The most common complications encountered in children with spinal cord injuries are scoliosis and hip dislocation. Children are in a period of rapid physical growth and development, and the weakness of the low back muscles caused by spinal cord injury and the lack of normal stress in the hip joint due to the child’s inability to stand normally are the main causes of these problems. In turn, the above complications can lead to the loss of normal uprightness and walking in children with prolonged illness.  Therefore, prevention of physical developmental deformities is an important component of spinal cord injury rehabilitation for children. In addition to the general spinal cord injury rehabilitation, special attention should be paid to the prevention of physical developmental deformities in children with spinal cord injury. In daily life, attention should be paid to maintaining a good sitting and lying posture and using orthopedic braces for the thoracolumbar region if necessary to prevent the occurrence of spinal deformities; a certain amount of standing time should be guaranteed every day to promote the normal development of the acetabulum and prevent the occurrence of hip dislocation or subluxation, and children with loss of motor function of both lower limbs should be equipped with double lower limb braces as early as possible to complete daily standing and walking.  The following is a comparison of the spine of a child with myelitis at the onset of the disease at the age of 1 and 5 years later, you can clearly see that the spine of a 6-year-old child has been scoliosis to a very serious degree, such a situation is indeed very sad!