Spinal cord injury facts and figures at a glance.

The National Spinal Cord Injury Database has been in existence since 1973 and captures data from an estimated 13% of new SCI cases in the U.S. Since its inception, 26 federally funded Model SCI Care Systems have contributed data to the National SCI Database. As of November 2008 the database contained information on 26,189 persons who sustained traumatic spinal cord injuries. All the remaining statistics on this sheet are derived from this database or from collaborative studies conducted by the Model Systems. Detailed discussions of all topics on this sheet may be found in special issues of the journal Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation published in November 1999 and November 2004.