Demographic profile of traumatic spinal cord injuries admitted at Indian Spinal Injuries Centre with special emphasis on mode of injury: a retrospective study

Objectives: To identify the demographic profile of persons with traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) admitted at the center. Setting: Indian Spinal Injuries Centre. Study design: Retrospective analysis. Methods: Information was collected in 2010 from case sheets of 1138 persons with TSCI admitted from January 2002 to May 2010. A telephonic survey was conducted to get further insight into fall from height (FFH) or road traffic accident (RTA) as a mode of injury. Results: The mean, median and mode for the age were 34.4, 32 and 30 years, respectively. Male:female ratio was 5.9:1 and 63.18% (n = 719) were married. RTA was the most common (45%) and FFH the second most common (39.63%) mode of injury. Overall, 66.67% suffered from paraplegia and 71.18% had complete injuries. Conclusion: As compared to other Indian published studies, our study had a much larger number of persons with TSCI and could be considered as the most representative amongst available literature for the Indian population. The study suggests that the demographics of spinal injury in India differs significantly from that in the developed countries since there was a lower mean age, much larger number of males, married individuals, injuries due to two wheeler accidents/falls, paraplegics and complete injuries. In contrast to other published Indian pilot studies, RTA was the most common mode of injury. Our study brings out the need for a proper epidemiological study and for establishing services for pre-hospital and acute care. Spinal Cord (2012) 50, 745-754; doi: 10.1038/sc.2012.45; published online 15 May 2012