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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Chronic complications of spinal cord injury
Nebahat Sezer, Selami Akkuş, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Faculty of Medicine, Atatürk Training and Research Hospital, 06800 Bilkent-Ankara, Turkey
Fatma Gülçin Uğurlu, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Atatürk Training and Research Hospital, 06800 Bilkent-Ankara, Turkey
Author contributions: Sezer N and Akkuş S contributed equally to this work; they performed the literature research, designed and wrote the paper; Uğurlu FG performed the literature research.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Nebahat Sezer, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Faculty of Medicine, Atatürk Training and Research Hospital, 06800 Bilkent-Ankara, Turkey. nsezer1994@yahoo.com
Telephone: +90-312-2912525 Fax: +90-312-2912726
Received: October 24, 2013
Peer-review started: October 25, 2013
First decision: December 13, 2013
Revised: January 2, 2014
Accepted: April 25, 2014
Article in press: April 29, 2014
Published online: January 18, 2015
Peer-review started: October 25, 2013
First decision: December 13, 2013
Revised: January 2, 2014
Accepted: April 25, 2014
Article in press: April 29, 2014
Published online: January 18, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a important clinical condition that can lead to lifelong disability. Additionally, the secondary complications following SCI, especially long-term complications, increase morbidity and decrease community participation and health-related quality of life. Improving functional level and quality of life are essential goals of rehabilitation in patients with SCI. Therefore, it is important to be aware of chronic complications of SCI and learn how to manage these complications for the recovery and rehabilitation process. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of chronic complications of SCI.