Spinal decompression following a spinal cord injury has long been known to be beneficial. Decompressing the spinal cord prevents a lot of secondary damage to the cord. Exactly whendecompression should be done, however, has been a point of controversy. Many experts have said that decompression should be accomplished within 24 hours of injury, while others say that decompressing that early is dangerous.
A new study suggests that not only is early decompression safe, it is amazingly beneficial compared to delayed compression. After 6 months, 24% of patients who received decompression within 24 hours of injury improved more than 2 ASIA grades compared with 4% of patients from the delayed group. Read more here.