Spinal Trauma – Where Should I Start?

Trauma to the spinal cord can result from accidents which damage the vertebral column. The results of traumatic spinal cord injury can be devastating and our first challenge is to evaluate the patient efficiently and effectively in order to determine the lesion localization and prognosis. Imaging of the patient will be essential in some form to understand the structural aspects of the injury and we will cover the pros and cons of the imaging modalities available to us. We will focus on how to make medical and surgical decisions in our traumatized patients, what these are and how effective they are in returning the dog or cat back to normal function.