Acute management of spinal cord injury at the out of hospital and emergency department settings

Background
Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating neurologic disorder. It is estimated to effect approximately a thousand patients each year, in Republic of Turkey. The purpose of this review was to populate the recent evidence related to acute management of the patients with spinal cord injuries in pre-hospital and emergency care settings.
Methods
We performed a literature review of publications in English language, indexed in Pubmed, ScienceDirect and Scopus using the following search terms: “spinal cord injury” and “acute management”, “spinal cord injury” and “immobilization”, “spinal cord injury” and “transfer”, “spinal cord injury” and “transport”, “spinal cord injury” and “airway management”, “spinal cord injury” and “hemodynamic management”, “spinal cord injury” and “steroid”. We also reviewed the recent international guidelines.
Results
This review reports the immobilization of patient with SCI and management strategies relevant to the transfer of SCI patient, airway management in cervical SCI, hemodynamic management of SCI, and methylprednisolone use in SCI.
Conclusion
Patient’s spinal aliment should be maintained with the appropriate techniques for sufficient immobilization for safe extrication and transport. The patient with an acute spinal injury should be rapidly and carefully transported from the site of injury to the nearest specialist SCI facility.