Paralysis: More Common Than We Think?

WASHINGTON -- Roughly one in 50 Americans has some degree of paralysis, and five times more people than doctors thought are living with a spinal-cord injury -- nearly 1.3 million -- says a startling new study.

It's a largely hidden population that neither the government nor medical organizations had ever attempted to fully count, and the findings promise to help health authorities understand the scope of need.

"Paralysis is not rare," said Dr. Edwin Trevathan, disabilities chief at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which helped design the study. "These data demand that we recommit ... to help this population."

"Those are startling, startling numbers," said Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., who has a spinal-cord injury himself and urged more investment in not just medical research but transportation, job opportunities and other day-to-day needs of the paralyzed.

The report found that overall, almost 5.6 million people have some degree of paralysis due to a variety of neurologic problems. Stroke and spinal-cord injury are the leading causes, but they also include multiple sclerosis, brain injuries, birth defects, surgical complications and a list of other ailments.

That's about 30 percent higher than previous estimates. But for spinal-cord injury alone, previous estimates were woeful -- suggesting just a quarter million people were living with the trauma, a count that mostly included people like the late actor Christopher Reeve, who wound up at specialty treatment centers.

How could so many people have been missed? Partly, people are living much longer with paralysis, said CDC's Trevathan.

And they're now starting to face the added complications of aging on top of a disability.

"There's no road map for somebody like me," said Alan T. Brown of Hollywood, Fla., who broke his neck 21 years ago, just before his 21st birthday.

From a youth spent in wheelchair marathons, he's entering middle age suddenly needing more care, like an electric wheelchair instead of a manual. He's getting more infections, 17 urinary-tract infections last year alone. That's on top of the extra hurdles to arrange routine care, like a colonoscopy.