A period of time after a spinal cord injury, when the area around the damaged cord is bruised and swollen. It can last for up to 6 weeks. During this time no messages can pass through the spinal cord below the level of injury. This will make the loss of function below the injury appear complete, and it is only once the swelling subsides that the true extent of the damage will become clearer.
The body's initial response to SCI, which lasts 3-4 weeks and causes immediate flaccid paralysis, in which the muscles are soft or weak.
the early stage of the body's response to spinal cord injury, usually lasting between 2 and 6 weeks, and during which paralysis appears complete.
Similar to a concussion in the brain, spinal shock causes the system shuts down.
a temporary physiological state that can occur after a spinal cord injury in which all sensory, motor, and sympathetic functions of the nervous system are lost below the level of injury. Spinal shock can lower blood pressure to dangerous levels and cause temporary paralysis.
an acute condition resulting from spinal cord severance. Characterized by a total sensory loss and loss of reflexes below the level of injury and flaccid paralysis.
Occurs immediately following SCI, and lasts from hours to months. It is recognized by flaccid (limp) paralysis caused by a loss of reflex activity below the level of the lesion, and low blood pressure and pulse rate.
Spinal shock is an initial period of “hypotonia†that can result from damage to the motor cortex or other brain regions concerned with the activation of motor neurons. This is the phenomena surrounding transection of the spinal cord that leads to temporary loss or depression of all or most spinal reflex activity below the level of a spinal lesion. Since many of the descending motor nerves cross the midline, spinal shock originating from damage on one side of the brain (such as damage due to a stroke) can often be detected as reduced muscle activity on the contralateral side of the body.