Current statistics of spinal cord injury in New Zealand
With sincerest gratitude to our friends at the NZ Spinal Cord Injury Registry here is a very brief list of key facts from the just released ‘Current Statistics’ year ending 2018.
A 12-page summary report and a comprehensive 36-page Annual report can be viewed by clicking here
- There are just over 200 new spinal cord impairments in NZ each year – ~4 per week
- 2/3 are traumatic and 1/3 non traumatic
TRAUMATIC FACTS (excluding non-traumatic numbers)
- Common Traumatic causes are Falls (39%) Transport (30%) Sports (18%) Other (13%)
- 75% of all traumatic are males – 25% female
- 2/3 result in tetraplegia 1/3 in paraplegia
- 30% sports are water sports/activities, 22% equestrian, 19% mountain biking/cycling
NON TRAUMATIC FACTS
- 1/3 are female, 2/3 are male
- 1/4
result in tetraplegia 3/4 in paraplegia
LENGTH OF STAY IN HOSPITAL (Median) - Paraplegics – 69 days
- Tetraplegics – 74 days
NB Length of stay ranges from 2 days to 258 days. AIS A tend to stay longer than incomplete.
