title: Spinal Cord Disorders.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The spinal cord is the main pathway for information, connecting the brain and the peripheral nervous system. Any disorder that results in spinal cord dysfunction will have a dramatic impact on the patient's quality of life. This review focusses on myelopathy, specifically, on the acute and subacute clinical presentations and the inflammatory and vascular etiology of this widespread disorder.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Myelopathy following spinal cord injury is a generic term referring to a lesion that affects the spinal cord following traumatic injury, or autoimmune, infectious, neoplastic, vascular and hereditary degenerative diseases. Depending on the patient's medical history, the underlying clinical syndrome and the temporal course of the manifestation, the clinician must account for a wide range of possible differential diagnoses.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Spinal cord disorders pose a tremendous challenge for the clinician, as they show great variability in clinical presentation but can have potentially devastating sequelae. The acute and sometimes urgent nature of therapeutic management is highly dependent on the underlying disorder, often necessitating a combination of approaches including surgical or conservative therapies (including immunomodulatory therapy) and an interdisciplinary approach to achieve the best outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Klinik fx00FC;r Neurologie, Kantonsspital St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Tettenborn
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hägele-Link
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D011788:Quality of Life; D013118:Spinal Cord Diseases / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*