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SPINAL CORD INJURY STATISTICS
There are currently about 450,000 Americans living with a spinal cord injury. More than 13,000 additional people are injured each year.
Every 41 minutes another person sustains a spinal cord injury.
The cost to maintain the health, accessibility to the community, and other direct costs associated with these chronic injuries is approximately $25,213 per person per year depending on the level of injury. This yearly charge totals $11,345,850,000, solely for direct costs related to the injury.
More than half of those injured are between the ages of 16-30.
The average first year costs for the newly injured, including initial hospitalization, rehabilitation, home modifications, and durable medical equipment such as wheelchairs, amounts to over $244,000 per person. This adds another $3,187,616,000 to the aggregate national bill. Thus, the total direct costs for spinal cord injury are a staggering $14,533,466,000.
Even modest improvements in function would cut medical costs
by over two-thirds per spinal cord injured person per year.
Indirect costs from loss of productive employment due to unemployment, reduced employment or changes in employment necessitated by level or severity of injury average $13,000 annually. Thus added to the above figures, is another astounding loss to the nation of $5,850,000,000.
These costs amount to $170 every year, for every taxpayer.
Thus, without even addressing the loss of family cohesion, social contacts, loss of other family members’ income while caring for the injured individuals, this nation is suffering a yearly economic drain of at least $ 20,383,466,000. This is more than the entire budget of the National Institutes of Health for the year 2001!
The nation currently invests less than 1% of the costs of spinal cord injury into research that has the potential to restore function and substantially reduce the costs.
American Association of Neurological Surgeons. http://www.neurosurgery.org/health/patient/answers.asp?DisorderID=42. Copyright 1998-2001, inclusive.
Based on 1997 figures, the most recent year for which figures are available. HCUPnet, Health Care Cost and Utilization Project. Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/data/hcup/hcupnet.htm
Berkowitz, et al., Spinal Cord Injury-An Analysis of Medical and Social Costs. New York: Demos Medical Publishing, 1998. Page 107
The costs for persons with quadriplegia is higher than for those with paraplegia.
Berkowitz, et al., Spinal Cord Injury-An Analysis of Medical and Social Costs. New York: Demos Medical Publishing, 1998. Page 107
Berkowitz, et al., Spinal Cord Injury-An Analysis of Medical and Social Costs. New York: Demos Medical Publishing, 1998. Page 107
www.aamc.org/research, Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research Funding.
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