This is an independent fundraising campaign benefitting the Medical University of South Carolina’s Department of Neurosurgery.
Why an Upright MRI? Some symptoms associated with spinal abnormalities worsen or appear only when patients sit, stand, or perform specific movements. Often symptoms are relieved when patients lie down. Whereas flexion and extension radiography is performed while patients are upright to allow for physiologic loading, conventional MRI is performed while patients are static and recumbent.
The advantage of spinal imaging with an Upright MRI is the ability to assess patients in weight-bearing positions, potentially detecting changes in spinal cord compression, angulation, or alignment that occur only under loading or with combined physiologic movements.