What is the spinal cord and where does the spinal cord start and end?

For a person to move and function properly, a person's central nervous system and peripheral nervous system needs to be in good health.

A traumatic spinal injury will result in damage to the spinal cord, or spinal cord nerves, and if you have suffered a severe spinal cord injury, due to somebody else's negligence or intention, a spinal injury lawyer can help show how to cope better by at least protecting your legal rights and enabling you to claim for compensation for your loss of normal movement, expenses due to the treatment of the injury, or expenses related to necessary changes in lifestyle, living conditions, and everyday functionality. Something as simple as walking to the corner post office to post a letter to loved ones, has been taken away from you.

A traumatic spinal injury lawyer also understands your specific claims for governmental benefits, disability, and will advise you about the various laws, rules and regulations of your specific State which may affect or restrict the amount of money damages, including the amount of money compensation for the pain and suffering of your serious and permanent traumatic spinal injury.

To better understand the severity of some spinal cord injuries, and why you should consider using a spinal injury lawyer to assist you with trying to regain somewhat of a normal life, it may help to understand where and what the spinal cord is.

The spinal cord can be thought of as a really soft rubber tube that runs down most of the length of your back, inside the protective bony column of your spine. Each vertebra is not completely solid, but has a hole in the middle, so vertebrae could be likened to thick misshapen rings. Do you recall playing with toy stacking rings as a child? Rings were stacked on top of each other around a central column. Luckily vertebrae are not plastic toy rings, but even though they are hard and bony and offer much protection for the spinal cord running down the middle of them, serious back injuries can cause just as serious harm to the spinal cord, especially since there are weak spots in the spine, located between each of the vertebra, where the vertebrae are stacked below or above each other, resting on disks which separate each vertebra. A disk will keep two vertebrae from rubbing against each other, and is like jelly, but disks harden with age.

The top end of the spinal cord joins the bottom of the brain, which is the neck area or cervical spine section. The bottom end ends in the region where the lower back, or lumbar spine, starts. Just the spinal nerves extend below the lumbar spine. An unbroken connection between the brain and the spinal cord is of the utmost importance for having full control of one's body.

The cord varies slightly in size along its length, usually not thinner than a pencil or thicker than one's thumb. It's like a cable made up of many different threads, but in the case of a spinal cord, millions of tiny nerve roots. These nerve roots exit the spinal cord, and backbone, between some of the backbones, to carry messages between the brain and the rest of the body. Spinal nerves exit only between certain sections of the spine, namely the cervical, thoracic, lumbar and sacral sections, or levels, and each exiting bundle of nerves is directly associated with the functioning of certain areas of the body, for example cervical spinal nerves provide the pathway for messages to travel between the brain and the head, between the brain and the upper and lower arms, and between the brain and the hands and fingers.

Messages go up and down the spinal cord between the brain and the rest of the body. If you've been injured because of the fault of another, it's like your private and important mail system has not only been interrupted, your post has been tampered with, and opened, and your privacy has been violated. Even your ability to take a walk to the post office to sort the mess out has been taken away from you.

Contact me via my contact form, or call me, Toll Free, on 888 446 1999, to arrange your first free consultation with me. I won’t charge you for any costs or fees if I am unable to secure money compensation for you.

The purpose of these web articles are not to make comment about an individual's personal choices, but are intended to educate you about the possible paths of outcome of various spinal injuries.

This website is provided as a public service regarding the topic of spinal injury and is not to be relied upon as medical or legal advice. The information supplied is of a general nature only, and is not intended to be relied upon. This information is not represented to be the most up to date or to cover your particular circumstances.

Before deciding to obtain care, treatment, or to determine a diagnosis, please consult with a licensed physician, and concerning your legal rights please consult with a lawyer.

Warning: Do not let any medical or legal concerns wait because of any information you have read on this website.

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Have you, or someone you know, had an accident resulting in a spine or spinal cord injury?

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