Traumatic spinal cord injury caused by low falls and high falls: a comparative study.
BACKGROUND
Quite a few traumatic spinal cord injuries (TSCI) were caused by falls. However, the comparison of different causes of TSCI or the epidemiological characteristics of TSCI caused by falls of different heights are rare. This study investigated the epidemiological characteristics of TSCI caused by falls and conducted a comparison between low falls and high falls.


METHOD
Data from cases with TSCI admitted to China Rehabilitation Research Center from 2010 to 2019 were collected, including age, gender, occupation, cause, neurological level, and severity of the injury in admission, combined injuries, complications, and rehabilitation length of stay. Mann-Whitney U and chi-square (χ2) tests were used to assess the differences between two groups at a statistical significance level of 0.05.


RESULT
A total of 1858 TSCI cases were included and 41.7% were caused by falls, 11.4% by low falls and 30.3% by high falls, respectively. Patients with fall-induced TSCI were older and had a shorter rehabilitation length of stay than those with non-fall-induced TSCI. Patients with high fall-induced TSCI were younger and more likely to suffer from paraplegia, severer injuries, and combined injuries, and had longer time from injury to rehabilitation and rehabilitation length of stay, compared with patients with low fall-induced TSCI.


CONCLUSION
Falls is the leading causes of TSCI and high fall is becoming more common. Attention not only should be paid to high falls for the severe injury and longer hospitalization, but also low falls due to the higher neurological level of the injury and the aging of population in China.
['Zhang|Zhen-Rong|ZR|', 'Wu|Yao|Y|', 'Wang|Fang-Yong|FY|http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9499-8654', 'Wang|Wen-Jing|WJ|']
D000058:Accidental Falls D000293:Adolescent D000328:Adult D000367:Age Factors D002648:Child D002675:Child, Preschool D002681:China D005260:Female D006801:Humans D007223:Infant D007902:Length of Stay D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D011379:Prognosis D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries D013997:Time Factors D015599:Trauma Severity Indices D055815:Young Adult
Spinal cord injury Fall Epidemiology Length of stay Functional outcome Older people Workplace