Accidents Are Main Causes Of Spinal Cord Injury

PETALING JAYA (Selangor, Malaysia), Nov 29 (Bernama) -- Motor vehicle and industrial accidents, involving falls from a height, have been identified as the main causes of spinal cord injury (SCI) in Malaysia. Malaysia’s leading SCI specialist Dr Nazirah Hasnan said the accidents contributed to about 40 per cent of SCI cases. Other SCI causes were related to sports activities, violence and in rare cases, infection. Dr Nazirah said this at a press conference, in conjunction with the 11th Asian Spinal Cord Network (ASCoN) Conference here on Thursday. The event was opened by the health ministry's medical development divison director, Dr Azmi Shapie. Dr Azmi, in his speech, said medical development, including well-coordinated multidisciplinary SCI units, had enabled patients to not only survive their injury, but also led to happy and productive lives. "This is a huge achievement since SCI was once considered a fatal medical condition where 90 per cent of the patients died within a year, with only one per cent surviving more than 20 years, during the First World War era,” he said. Dr Azmi said the government and ministry were very committed in improving the healthcare and rehabilitative services to enable SCI patients to get better. "For now, there are 15 public hospitals being equipped with resident rehabilitative physicians which strengthened the rehabilitative services needed by our patients," he said. Prominent rehabilitation medical centres include Rehabilitation Medicine Department at University Malaya Medical Centre, University Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre and the newly-opened Hospital Rehabilitasi Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. -- BERNAMA