Traumatic spinal cord injuries in Turkey.

Spinal cord lesions have various aetiologies, and trauma is one of the leading causes. Patients with spinal cord injuries (SCI) often have motor, sensory and autonomic dysfunctions and require a multidisciplinary rehabilitation programme. In this study 1694 SCI patients were investigated, including the frequency, and the distribution by age, sex, profession, aetiology, clinical status and year of occurrence. Traumatic SCI is more frequent among males than females and among those between the ages of 15 and 39 years. Regarding the aetiology, traffic accident comprised 35.41% of the total cases, the second most common cause was falls with 29.51%, and the third was high velocity bullet wounds: 21.95%.