Special Issue: AO Spine & Praxis Spinal Cord Institute Guidelines for the Management of Acute Spinal Cord Injury

• Guest Editor: Michael G. Fehlings
• Guest Editor: Brian K. Kwon
• Guest Editor: Nathan Evaniew
• Guest Editor: Lindsay A. Tetreault

The Praxis-AO Spine Acute SCI Guidelines make sure that best practices in care are available widely, to standardize SCI care across B.C., Canada, and internationally. Developed in part from Praxis-supported and B.C.-based research, the guidelines present best practices at the clinician’s fingertips, and will become part of the Canadian Spinal Cord Injury Practice (Can-SCIP) Guideline.

The guidelines, developed as part of the AO Spine Knowledge Forum, seek to define new evidence-based treatment approaches, and make them accessible to the global spine surgeon community. 

The initiative is a resource that offers clinical guidelines in three areas:

• the timing of surgical decompression to alleviate swelling around the spinal cord that can make the initial injury much worse following SCI,
• hemodynamic management of the patient in the acute phase to ensure good fluid and blood flow to the compromised region,
• management of a SCI which can occur as a complication of surgery.

Each of these seeks to minimize further damage beyond the original injury and thus retain as much physical function as possible. Guidelines developed using Praxis-funded research will inform SCI care for optimal clinical management during the acute phase nationally and across the world.

Praxis works in conjunction with AO Spine and under the leadership of Dr. Brian Kwon and Dr. Michael Fehlings, who are both long term collaborators with the Institute. The guidelines review and with input from experts and people with lived experience, are gathered into a single resource, making them available to spine surgeons worldwide.

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Global Spine Journal Volume 14 Issue 3_suppl, March 2024

Continue to the journal.

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