Management of the Aged Patients with Cervical Cord Injury

The aged patient over 65 years old has physiological changes due to aging and also frequently, pathological conditions of the pulmonary-cardiac and vascular systems.These changes and conditions are complicated with the paralytic condition of respiratory or non-respiratory quadriplegia and autonomous nervous system insufficience due to a transacted cervical cord.In this paper, from our therapeutic experience of 24 patients with a severely paralytic condition, general management for the aged patients is described in detail, especially about the respiratory and cardiac problems.5 patients died from associated pneumonia and DIC during admission and 2 patients died from respiratory obstruction at home.The treatment of the aged patients with a transacted cervical cord should be directed towards the general condition rather than the cervical structural malalignment.