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Ice Hockey Player
with Posttraumatic Transient Spinal Cord Injury (TSCI)
Clinical Case Overview
Following a violent body check, a professional ice hockey player
experienced a sudden total quadraparesis that paralyzed him during
play for a full minute. The upright flexion and extension images
showed two centromedullary cord contusions where only one was
visible
on the neutral upright scan. The two contusions accounted for the
quadraparesis that caused his sudden transient paralysis on the
ice while playing.
 The
critically compromising stenosis at C 3-4, visualized only by means
of the FONAR Upright™ MRI extension images in this athlete
with a congenitally tight spinal canal, was responsible for the
acute cord compression and centromedullary contusions that resulted
in the acute transient paralysis (1 minute duration) of this athlete.
His lesions were visible only on upright extension.
Following anterior decompression and interbody fusion
with a composite cage, this hockey player, who might otherwise have
had his professional athletic career terminated, was back on the
ice competing, 3 months after surgery.
J.P. Elsig, M.D.
Orthopedic Surgeon
Fellow of the Swiss Orthopedic Society
Member of the Board of the Swiss Spine Society
FMRI Zentrum
Zurich, Switzerland
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