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Traumatic Spinal Cord Injuries In Hualien County, Ching Lan, Jin-Shin Lai, Kwang-Hwa Chang, Yuh-Chin Jean, I-Nan Lien

Rehabilitation Practice and Science

In order to survey the epidemiological characteristics and the overall rehabilitation profile of traumatic spinal cord injuries (SCI) in Hualien county, a retrospective study was conducted from January 1987 to December 1990 in four local general hospitals. During this period, 88 traumatic SCI patients were identified. The estimated annual incidence of traumatic SCI in Hualien county was 62.3 per million population. As a result of injury 32 patients were tetraparetic, 29 were tetraplegic, 12 were paraparetic and 15 were paraplegic. The male/female ratio was 3.6:1 The mean age of onset for male patients was 44 ± 16 years, and that …