The Spinal Cord Injury Law Firm launched the legal and advocacy initiative “Stop Pressuring Us” (often tagged #StopPressuringMe) in 2024 as a national advocacy effort focused on preventing pressure injuries among people with spinal cord injuries in hospitals and care facilities. The campaign was created alongside the website scipressuresores.com to raise awareness and hold healthcare systems accountable for preventable pressure sores.
A pressure sore is a wound that develops from constant pressure on the skin—usually over bony areas like the tailbone, hips, or heels. The pressure cuts off blood flow, causing tissue damage. These wounds can progress quickly and tunnel to the bone causing dangerous infections.
Pressure sores can be common in people with spinal cord injuries who cannot feel pressure or reposition independently.
But pressure sores are not a side effect of spinal cord injury. They are a second injury. And most often they are an injury that a third party is liable for.
That’s because pressure sores develop from caregiver negligence. They most frequently occur in settings where staff are responsible for implementing well-established preventive measures—such as regular repositioning, skin checks, and pressure-relieving equipment—but these measures are not consistently carried out. Hospitals and nursing homes are where people with spinal cord injuries are the most at risk for developing pressure sores.
Stop Pressuring Us advocates for better hospital protocols, public education, and legal accountability when pressure injuries occur due to negligent care.
The initiative focuses on holding healthcare systems accountable for preventable injuries.
Since launching the campaign we’ve heard hundreds of stories: Injury upon injury; spinal cord injury rehabilitation progress cut short, lifestyles limited for month upon month after a short hospital stay, dangerous infections caused by pressure wounds that developed during respite in nursing facilities.
Observing these patterns of systemic failure, our team aims to facilitate legal claims for those who have sustained an injury upon injury while in hospitals, nursing homes, and home care settings.
In these settings standard care requires regular repositioning, keeping the skin clean and dry, using pressure-relieving cushions or mattresses, and monitoring the skin for early redness or breakdown. A pressure sore in this setting indicates this care was not received.
In hospitals alone, roughly 2.5 million patients develop hospital-acquired pressure injuries annually, meaning the sores formed during their stay rather than before admission. About 30–40% of people with spinal cord injuries develop pressure ulcers during hospitalization or rehabilitation after their injury.
Our team of attorneys living with spinal cord injury find this unacceptable! Enough is enough.
Contribute to our campaign’s data by taking the survey at tinyurl.com/pressuresoressci.
Stay informed by following @scipressuresores on social media platforms.
Explore resources and information at SCIpressuresores.com.
For more about the campaign read this article here.
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