Enquête sur les conditions de vie de 291 blessés médullaires de retour à domicile

The Tetrafigap Survey on the long-term outcome of tetraplegic spinal cord injured persons, Part II: Demographic characteristics and initial cause of injury

“…10 The most recent French survey gives a rate of 38% TSCI, but in this case the survey was conducted outside institutions, a fact which is liable to lower the ratio of TSCI patients. 11 A low rate of TSCI patients (31%) is mentioned by Whiteneck et al but this survey involves accidents which occurred before 1970. 12 Follow-up of the SCI population by DeVivo et al shows a progressive, moderate though steady increase in the proportion of TSCI patients.…”

“…The male rate is 79.9%, ranging from 77% 15 to 87.5%, 12 and identical to French authors' results: 80.3% for Daverat et al 10 DeVivo et al observe a male rate of 84.5% 1 and the US National SCI Database a male rate of 82.2%. 2 A recent French study reveals a more important rate for male, 87% in TSCI patients versus 77.4% in SCI patients in general, 11 a notion that is not emphasised elsewhere. Frankel et al 2 show that this male/female ratio no longer varies as a function of time of accident since the mid-1960s, while the oldest survivors in their series are almost only male patients (3.4% of females for accidents occurring before 1952).…”

“…The main issues they addressed were their life conditions and medical follow-up. 11 The current paper is aimed at describing the major demographic characteristics of the French TSCI population as well as causes of the initial accident and spinal injury. The above literature review reveals that very few studies are conducted on tetraplegics alone.…”