What are the clinical manifestations of spinal shock?

Spinal shock is actually not difficult to understand just by looking at its literal meaning. This is a phenomenon in which the spinal cord below the section temporarily loses the ability to perform normal reflex activities and becomes unresponsive after the spinal cord is severed from the high middle European part. So what are the symptoms of spinal shock?

In spinal shock, the tone of the skeletal muscles innervated by the spinal cord below the cross section decreases or disappears, peripheral blood vessels dilate, blood pressure drops, sweating reflex disappears, the bladder is filled with urine, and feces accumulates in the rectum, indicating that the somatic and visceral reflexes of vertebrates are reduced or disappeared. Spinal shock is a temporary phenomenon, and various reflexes will gradually recover later. The speed of recovery is closely related to the level of evolution of the animal species. In lower animals such as frogs, reflexes can be restored within minutes after spinal cord severance, but in dogs it takes several days and in monkeys it takes several weeks. In humans, recovery from spinal shock due to trauma and other reasons may take weeks or even months. The recovery time of various reflexes is also different. For example, simpler reflexes such as flexor reflex and tendon reflex recover the earliest, followed by more complex reflexes such as the contralateral extensor reflex and scratching reflex, as well as partial recovery of urination and defecation reflexes.

Spinal cord concussion: It is the loss of higher-level nervous activities such as sensation, movement, and reflex below the injury plane. After the spinal cord concussion disappears, the motor function that is restored is voluntary movement. Spinal shock is the loss of spinal nerve function below the level of damage. The spinal cord is a low-level reflex center, and the nerve function of the spinal cord is low-level nerve reflex. In other words, what is lost in spinal shock is the spinal cord's own low-level nerve reflex function. After the spinal shock disappears, it often changes from flaccid paralysis to spastic paralysis. This paralysis is caused by severe spinal cord damage caused by trauma, not by spinal shock.

Spinal cord compression: refers to a group of diseases in which the spinal cord, spinal nerve roots and their supplying blood vessels are compressed by lesions of various natures.

Spinal cord ischemia: A series of damaging biochemical changes caused by spinal cord ischemia will lead to intracellular calcium accumulation and increased content of oxygen free radicals, thereby damaging neurons in the spinal cord and causing irreversible spinal cord function damage. Spinal cord ischemia is less common than cerebral ischemia. The main reasons are: the spinal cord arteries are less sclerotic than the cerebral arteries; the spinal cord blood supply network is rich; and the spinal cord has a strong tolerance to ischemia. Spinal cord ischemia caused by lesions of the spinal cord itself may cause symptoms that are transient or permanent.