Tara, a 16-year-old girl, was rushed to the hospital after taking a bad spill off the parallel bars. After she had a complete neurological workup, her family was told that she would be permanently paralyzed from the waist down. During rehabilitation, her neurologist outlined for Tara and her parents the importance of preventing complications in such cases. Common complications include urinary infection, bed sores, and muscular spasms. Using your knowledge of neuroanatomy, explain the underlying reasons for these complications.

Video transcript

Hello, everyone and welcome to today's video. So today we have the marry, a 50 year old woman was recently diagnosed with a spinal cord injury. Her doctor informed her that in addition to the loss of motor function, there are potential complications that she should be aware of. If her spinal cord injury damage her sympathetic nervous system, which of the following conditions will she likely experience as answer choice. A we have bladder dysfunction, B, difficulty in breathing. C urinary retention, D decrease blood pressure. Let's begin by taking a look at answer choices. A and C bladder dysfunction, any urinary retention. Well, now the reason why we're looking at these answer choice together is that when the spinal cord injury is affecting the nerves that control the bladder, this is when we see urinary retention and bladder dysfunction. However, we are being asked for the result of damage to the sympathetic nervous system, not the nerves that control the bladder. So we're going to be able to cancel this out because these are not part of the sympathetic nervous system. Then we have the difficulty in breathing. Now, when the spinal cord affects the nerves that control the muscles involved in breathing. The patient will experience respiratory problems. However, the sympathetic nervous system is not going to include these nerves. And therefore we're going to be able to cancel out answer choice be, then we have the decreased blood pressure. Now, decreased blood pressure can occur due to damage to the sympathetic nervous system. And this is because it is the system that normally helps regular blood pressure without proper regulation. This blood pressure may drop too low, leading to dizziness and fainting. But in the end, the correct answer choice that can be resulting from damage to the sympathetic nervous system is going to be decreased blood pressure. And it is a final answer to our question. I really hope it's helped you and I hope to see you on the next video.