UROLOGICAL ASPECTS OF REHABILITATION IN SPINAL CORD INJURIES
- Ernest Bors, M.D.
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
The goal of rehabilitation of the paraplegic patient is threefold: medical, physical and vocational-industrial. The urological part of the medical rehabilitation and physical rehabilitation must start as a synchronized effort immediately after the injury.
In World War I only 20 per cent of the spinal cord casualties reached the United States, while 80 per cent died overseas. This ratio was dramatically reversed in World War II, with a survival rate of 80 to 88 per cent of the returning soldiers.1 Table 1 illustrates the high mortality from genitourinary causes in World War I as contrasted with the low incidence of genitourinary deaths in World War II. This progress must be attributed to the improved understanding of the pathophysiology of the neurogenic bladder and its associated complications and to the advent of sulfonamide drugs and antibiotics.
BLADDER PHYSIOLOGY The function of the bladder consists in storage and elimination. Elimination starts
Footnotes
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Read in the Symposium on Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation for Paraplegics before the Section on Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Ninety-Ninth Annual Session of the American Medical Association, San Francisco, June 30, 1950.
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Reviewed in the Veterans Administration and published with the approval of the Chief Medical Director. The statements and conclusions published by the author are the result of his own study and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or policy of the Veterans Administration.
