Clinicians have long treated spinal cord injuries—a leading cause of long-term disability—in part by augmenting a patient’s blood pressure. The idea was that the injury impacted the body’s regulation of blood flow to the spine, and that bumping up a patient’s blood pressure beyond conventional levels early on might help.

New research suggests that the practice may be misguided.

The study , launched several years ago at Oregon Health & Science University and published last week in J AMA Network Open , stemmed from the premise that blood pressure management is important to healing from spinal cord injury, but that it remained unclear what effect augmenting the blood pressure beyond conventional levels actually had.

The study looked at two groups of adult patients. One group received ea

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