Spinal Cord Injury Clinics
Helping You Navigate Living with a Spinal Cord Injury
We know that those living with a spinal cord injury (SCI) face challenges unique to their situation. Our clinical teams offer a few specialized outpatient clinics to help address some of those challenges and help patients live as comfortably and functionally as possible. To better serve the SCI community, we offer a urodynamics clinic, a tetraplegia management clinic, a medical home clinic and other outpatient clinics.
To schedule an appointment, call 216-778-4414.
Referrals are not required. Verify with your insurance carrier.
SCI Urodynamics Clinic
After a SCI, most people suffer from neurogenic bladder dysfunction. The effects of this condition can result in frequent urination, incontinence, incomplete bladder emptying and/or catheter dependence. However, those long-term changes from neurogenic bladder can lead to recurrent urinary tract infections, kidney stones, kidney damage and more.
Urodynamic studies (UDS) measure the pressures and volumes that impact your bladder’s ability to store and empty urine. The results can tell us many things about your bladder health:
- What is the best method to empty your bladder?
- What medications, procedures or surgeries may improve your quality of life?
- How can we better prevent urinary tract infections (UTI), autonomic dysreflexia (AD) and incontinence?
- Are you at risk for kidney damage or other serious complications?
Tetraplegia Management Clinic
Rehabilitation after a spinal cord injury is an ongoing journey. MetroHealth’s Tetraplegia Management Clinic helps to restore maximal upper extremity function utilizing innovative techniques. A team of healthcare professionals—doctors, surgeons, nurses, researchers and therapists—evaluate your current abilities and make a recommendation about opportunities that exist for your next step of the rehab journey.
Photo courtesy of Cleveland FES Center.
MetroHealth is a Model Center for Spinal Cord Injury and offers a variety of innovative surgical reconstructive procedures. You may be eligible for:
Nerve transfers
If you have nerves that work below your level of injury, a surgeon may be able to take those nerves and transfer them to a muscle that currently does not work. Over time, the transferred nerve can regrow and begin to control the muscle to which it was transferred.
Tendon transfers
If you have very strong movement in some of your arm, this may indicate that you have more than one muscle contributing to the movement. When two muscles are helping you move part of your arm, surgeons can move a tendon of one of the muscles to another location to provide new ability for you. Tendon transfers require a few weeks of healing in a cast, followed by therapy to learn how to use your “new” muscles.
Neuroprosthesis
If your nerves are working, but the damage in your spinal cord prevents the muscles from moving on their own, you may be eligible for a neuroprosthesis. Since this technology is only available by participating in research, you will be offered information about current clinical trials.
SCI Medical Home Clinic
Many barriers exist for people after spinal cord injury (SCI) to receive high-quality primary and preventative care. To address this, MetroHealth established one of the only medical home clinics for adults with SCI in the nation. The term “Medical Home” refers to the idea that our team can be the home for all your medical needs. Patients attend an annual clinic focused on preventative care and screening that includes:
- Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation physician
- Family Medicine physician
- Physical therapist
- Occupational therapist
- Nursing
- Researchers
- Wound care and social work specialists (as available)
Our program’s goal is to provide a comprehensive clinic that allows individuals with SCI to receive team-based care to ensure individuals are receiving the proper care and opportunities following their injury. We track function and health utilizing evidence-based measurements that can be tracked from year to year. When issues cannot be resolved by the core team, referrals are placed to specialists across the MetroHealth system.
Leader in Inpatient Spinal Cord Injury
As one of only 18 Spinal Cord Injury Model Systems in the U.S., we have a dedicated SCI rehab unit and a comprehensive care team that includes doctors with specialty certification in spinal cord injury rehabilitation, as well as nurses, psychologists, social workers and therapists with advanced training in SCI.
Outpatient Clinics that Get You Back to What Matters
Whether you need a wheelchair, are trying to resume driving or work, or want to use technologies to interact with your home, we have clinics to help you achieve your goals.
