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Emergency Neurological Life Support: Spinal Cord Compression (SCC)

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Abstract

Acute spinal cord compression (SCC) is the most serious of the diseases of the cord and should be accorded special attention in neurocritical care. Patients with SCC have a combination of motor and sensory dysfunction that has a distribution referable to one, or a few contiguous, spinal levels. Bowel and bladder dysfunction and neck or back pain are usually part of the clinical presentation but are not uniformly present. Because interventions are time-sensitive, the recognition and treatment of SCC was chosen as an ENLS protocol.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA

    Kristine H. O’Phelan

  2. Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    E. Bradshaw Bunney

  3. ENLS Course Co-Chair, Division of ED Critical Care, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Scott D. Weingart

  4. ENLS Course Co-Chair, Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Wade S. Smith

Authors
  1. Kristine H. O’Phelan
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  2. E. Bradshaw Bunney
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  3. Scott D. Weingart
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  4. Wade S. Smith
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Correspondence to Kristine H. O’Phelan.

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O’Phelan, K.H., Bunney, E.B., Weingart, S.D. et al. Emergency Neurological Life Support: Spinal Cord Compression (SCC). Neurocrit Care 17 (Suppl 1), 96–101 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12028-012-9756-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12028-012-9756-3

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