Therapies that can be applied during the first year after injury

[Wise Young]

The following is a recent posting from an Austrian Doctor:

posted 08-02-03 03:38 PM
h.resch@aon.at
Dear Sir,
I would like to ask for some advices:
I have a patient with traumatic C5 fracture and lesion of the spinal cord with complete paraplegia from C6 downward. The patient is 19 years old and sustained a motocross accident one week ago. We have performed surgery immediately after the accident in order to remove the body of C5 which narrowed the spinal cord about half of its thickness. The fracture then was stabilised by bone block and plate. The patient had also received high dose cortisone immediately after the accident from the rescue team.
On the MRI 5 days after the accident the spinal cord has enough space and seems not to be interrupted but shows edema and a little bit of a central bleeding.
I would like to ask you for some recommendations in the treatment. Has somebody of you something we could give to the patient even if it is in the experimental stage? I hope you can give me some advices!
Thank you
Dr. Herbert Resch
General Hospital Salzburg, Austria

While I posted an answer to his question, I thought that I would start a new topic to address the question specifically