[Spinal cord lesion. Nursing procedure]

There has been a considerable increase in recent years in the number of persons who suffer a spinal cord lesion, winding up either paraplegics or tetraplegics. Their quality of life depends to a large degree on the attention provided by healthcare professionals, both during their period of rehabilitation as well as later, assisting them to avoid those problems which develop. The authors propose to provide the reader with a grasp of what it means to live with a spinal cord lesion. They will comment on the alterations which develop, detailing what monitoring and care the nurse should offer for each one: state how one can avoid or solve problems related to these lesions, point out what the most frequent complications are and inform what aspects one must consider if a patient has to have surgery.