
Hylke Sieders
An avid sports fan and survivor
Hylke Sieders suffers from a spinal cord injury and shares what impact such injury has on him and his family. He would like to set up a foundation for spinal cord research and be more in touch with manufacturers to help innovate the current medical technologies for people living with a spinal cord injury. He can be reached at [email protected]
3 blogs from the author

Posted on 25.06.2014
Should healthcare be quick fixes driven?
Pressure ulcers, also known as bedsores, normally develop when an area of the body is under pressure for a relatively long time. I experienced pressure ulcers first hand when I was recovering from a spontaneous spinal cord haemorrhage in 2009. My first encounter with pressure ulcers was when I spent months on end on a wheelchair with no mobility. It was a painful journey I endured as a result of quick fixes rather than established protocol.

Hylke Sieders and the search for a more personal healthcare for SCI patients
In my article in the newsletter of last August, I told you about the standard rehabilitation support I receive as outpatient of spinal cord injury (SCI), and how I have had to work for access to more personalised treatment, which has brought to where I am today. However, be that as it may, my current state of rehabilitation remains insufficient and my search for better alternatives continues.

Boosting Personalised Medicine – A Patient Perspective
Hockey, sailing, golf, football … As an avid sports fan, I used to enjoy all those kinds of activities with great enthusiasm – until the day I became paralysed. Some of you may remember me from the European MedTech Forum in 2011 or from this video on which I told my story after I made my comeback. For those who don’t: my name is Hylke Sieders, I am 37 and suffered from a sudden spinal cord bleeding between the C2 and C3 vertebrae (in the neck) in 2009 which left me almost entirely paralysed. Almost, since I am able to stretch my arms and use 3 ½ fingers from my left hand. But I don’t have movement in the rest of my body although my legs are not completely devoid of sensation (current status C5-C6).