Early, Therapeutic, Social and Vocational Problems in the Rehabilitation of Persons With Spinal Cord Injuries

Dr Weiss (of instant prosthesis fame) and his colleagues have presented a remarkable treatise on vertebral and spinal cord injuries created out of their own experiences and investigations. Some aspects are treated encyclopedically, particularly the detailed discussion on pros and cons of various orthopedic procedures to achieve stabilization and anatomic normalization of the canal. The main author further pursues his experiences with balanced spring fixation for spine instability, devoting a third of the book to the surgical technique, biomechanical experiments of spring fixation, and clinical results in 152 cases complete with roentgenographic documentation. Further original work applies to clinical and experimental pathological characteristics of traumatic myelopathy, theoretical and clinical considerations of the distressing problem of spasticity, and some pathophysiological investigations of the Hoffmann reflex (evoked muscle potential by discharge from anterior horn cells by stimulation of afferents in a mixed nerve trunk), which disclosed that the cord in spinal shock