Concomitant Brain Injury and Spinal Cord Injury Management Strategies: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a catastrophic event with multiple comorbidities including spastic paralysis, sensory loss, autonomic dysfunction with sympathetic blunting, neurogenic orthostatic hypotension, neurogenic restrictive and obstructive lung disease, neuropathic pain, spasticity, neurogenic bladder, neurogenic bowel, immobilization hypercalcemia, osteopenia/osteoporosis, neurogenic obesity, and metabolic dysfunction. Cervical and thoracic SCI is all too often accompanied by traumatic brain injury (TBI), which carries its own set of comorbidities including headaches, seizures, paroxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity, aphasia, dysphagia, cognitive dysfunction, memory loss, agitation/anxiety, spasticity, bladder and bowel incontinence, and heterotopic ossification. This manuscript will review the etiology and epidemiology of dual diagnoses, assessment of both entities, and discuss some of the most common comorbidities and management strategies to optimize functional recovery.