A report released by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation Tuesday says, there are about 5.6-million Americans suffering from some form of paralysis, including a quarter with spinal-cord injuries.

The study was funded by the foundation, however, it neither designed or ran it, it main aim being to obtain an accurate estimate of people affected by paralysis, and use the data to boost efforts for raising more research money and expansion of health-insurance coverage for such patients. The idea was also to seek increased services for helping in care co-ordination, including dealing with secondary health problems like bed sores and pneumonia.

Christopher Reeve paralyzed in a 1995 fall from a horse died in 2004, whereas Dana Reeve died of lung cancer 2006.

Signing a new legislation titled the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, before it was folded into an unrelated bill last month, President Barack Obama authorized the Congress to put aside $25-million in federal funding for expansion of and more coordinated research on paralysis, including programmes to help those who had trouble moving.

According to Anthony Cahill, Director, University of New Mexico School of Medicine's division of disability and health policy, and the lead investigator for the Reeve study, the earlier estimates of paralysis patients were limited using small geographic areas, medical-billing data missing past diagnoses, or medical centres handling only the most severe cases.

Whereas, the new estimate is based on telephone survey of over 33,000 U. S. households, who were asked whether anybody in the household had difficulty moving their arms or legs due to disease or injury affecting their central nervous system, such as a spinal-cord injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis or cerebral palsy. Those answering yes were included in the group who had some form of paralysis, however, patients with difficult arthritis were left out.

About half the respondents surveyed had extreme trouble moving or were completely unable to do so, and half of those had paralysis related to stroke or spinal-cord injury, with some 7% of the paralysis related to a accidents, particularly motor-related accidents or injury during military service.

The number of paralysis patients is rising as they are living longer, with two-thirds of those with paralysis having an annual household income of less than $30,000.