Infections often claim those with spinal-cord injuries

By The Associated Press

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Actor Christopher Reeve had excellent medical care but lived about as long as most people with such severe neck injuries, and succumbed the way they usually do — from an infection.

Reeve, who was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident in 1995, died Sunday at age 52.

Spinal-cord injuries shorten most victims' life spans, often because people in wheelchairs are prone to bedsores that can become infected.

Quadriplegics have the added danger of frequent urinary-tract infections and infections from tubes to breathing machines, said Dr. David Apple, past president of the American Spinal Injury Association and medical director of the Shepherd Center, a specialty hospital in Atlanta that treats spinal-cord and brain-injury patients.

To really heal a persistent bedsore, patients often must be hospitalized, have surgery to cut away the damaged skin and have a new skin flap put in its place. It's six to 12 weeks before they can gradually return to sitting in a wheelchair again and resume activities.

"We have patients who just don't want to do that," Apple said.

The alternative is treatment with antibiotics, but spinal-cord patients often have had repeated courses of such drugs.

"It's not hard to get a resistant strain of bacteria that even newer drugs can't cure," Apple said.

And once an infection spreads to the bloodstream — a dangerous condition called sepsis — "it can be difficult" to treat with any drugs, he said.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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