Open AccessPurpose: To find out the average survival rate following Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) in Bangladesh.
Method: 158 randomly selected death records of persons with SCI from the years 1979 to 1999, were analysed retrospectively in August 2009, at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed, (CRP), Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The records showed that 91% were males and the mean age of sustaining injury was 33.85 years. Most of them were paraplegic (79.75%) and the injuries were traumatic in origin (86.1%). Overall, 56.4% of those admitted died within 5 years and only 16.4% survived beyond 10 years following SCI. Every four out of five affected persons died at home.
Results: Though there was difficulty in comparing survival rates of persons with SCI in developing and developed countries, life expectancy among persons with SCI in the current study was found to be much lower than that of similar patients in developed countries.
Conclusions: Further research on a larger scale, using an international standardised method to compare results, is essential to produce more accurate data. Special attention needs to be paid to improving the support systems for persons with SCI in the acute rehabilitation and reintegration phases of care in Bangladesh.
Key words: Paraplegia, life expectancy, survival, SCI, developing countries, Bangladesh.
doi 10.5463/DCID.v22i2.34