Newly Injured, Personal Care

Taking Care of Skin After Spinal Cord Injury

People with spinal cord injuries may no longer receive pain signals in their brain when something is irritating their skin. The result can be abrasions, openings in the skin or much deeper issues like pressure ulcers. This video from Moss Rehab’s Living with SCI Series discusses the risk factors for such injuries and offers tips on how to prevent them.

This video highlights how to properly take care of the skin when living with a spinal cord injury and preventative measures to avoid issues from abrasions to pressure ulcers.

“Most often after you sustained a spinal injury there are significant changes that happen in the ability for your body to communicate. So there’s disruption of the communication between your brain, your spinal cord and also your muscles.Additionally, there are changes in your sensation. So that means that you no longer can feel the same things. You don’t get those signals that something is hurting you. A pressure injury can be something as simple as an abrasion or superficial opening in your skin, but it can be also as devastating as extending into deep damage of underlying soft tissue that can even go down to your muscle or bone. So people that have spinal injuries are actually in the highest disability risk group to develop a pressure injury.” – Beth Jacobs, RN, CCM, CRRN, SCI Clinical Coordinator, Moss Rehab

MossRehab is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania region and offers a personalized and comprehensive approach to spinal cord injury rehabilitation. Learn more at: https://www.mossrehab.com/spinal-cord-injury.