Managing autonomic dysreflexia through the use of clinical practice guidelines

One of the goals listed in the American Association of Spinal Cord Injury Nurses (AASCIN) strategic plan 1993-1998, is to provide strategic vision to advance professional practice in spinal cord injury (SCI) nursing. In this quest, along with the development of Standards of Spinal Cord Injury Nursing Practice, the AASCIN Clinical Practice Committee is developing Clinical Practice Guidelines to describe a suggested course of action to address specific clinical conditions or needs of individuals with spinal cord injury. The first Clinical Practice Guideline to be completed is Autonomic Dysreflexia (AD) (Kuric & Hixon, 1996). The purpose of this article is to review the pathophysiology of AD and then describe the symptoms, assessment parameters and nursing interventions suggested in the Clinical Practice Guidelines.