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Rehabilitation Practice and Science

Translated Title

頸髓損傷患者於睡眠時猝死：兩病例報告

Abstract

The high cervical cord injury patients,who have respiratory muscle dysfunction because of C3-C5 injury , may develop sudden death during sleep. It is commonly caused by chronic alveolar hypoventilation or air way mucus plugging. As it happens, there are usually rare remarkable clinical symptoms and signs. For individuals with spinal cord injury associated with less than 50% of predicted vital capacity, 24 hours' blood gas monitor always showed nocturnal hypoxemia as well as carbon dioxide retention. Early detection of these disorders is crucial to prevent these patients from sudden death.In this study, we proposed two cases of high cervical cord injury developing sudden death during sleep. One suffered from C4 complete traumatic cord injury, and the other was a C3 incomplete radiation myelopathy as a sequalae of radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma. In the former, she died at the first night of her admission before we had performed the pulmonary function test for her. In the latter, deterioration of vital capacity was found, but 24 hours' blood gas monitor was not available and detection of nocturnal breathing disorder became impossible. The authors recommend 24 hours' blood gas monitor should be done routinely in high cervical cord injury individuals.to prevent the hazard of sudden death during sleep.

Language

Traditional Chinese

First Page

87

Last Page

92

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